Mushrooms - a drawing

 

We were on a very short vacation - only two days in a hotel near our Natural Reserves on the Veluwe and we made some nice autumn walks in our very beautiful nature. There have been wonderful views, beautiful trees, some deer that were too quick for the camera and of course mushrooms.

To the hotel I only brought my drawing materials (paper and pencils) and I used these to make a drawing after one of the pictures my husband made. 

Out of a dark, wet fallen tree trunk come some shining mushrooms that capture the light beautifully. On the tree trunk there is a fallen leaf in orange and yellow shades, adding some colour to the scene.

Using my pencils, I have layered colours to get the result I wanted, carefully avoiding the white, reflecting hood of the mushroom. The cracks in the tree trunk were really dark, especially after the rain of that morning. 

The result is what I hoped for and I had a good time drawing this mushroom.

The information about the materials I have used, the size of this work and its availability can all be found in my Tumblr blog.

Autumn mood

 

Now it is really autumn, not only on the calendar but also outside, with rain, wind and dropping temperatures. The inspiration to paint flowers is far away now, I have been browsing my archive of mushroom pictures for  this watercolour painting.

The reference picture was made a few years ago and I have forgotten where this was. It was a forest - but we have been walking in many forest or woodland areas over the past years.

This is a large group of mushrooms and those in the foreground were already withering when the picture was made. They were growing on a piece of dead tree that was on the forest ground.

For the background I have chosen colours that are also seen or used in the mushrooms. The mushrooms are painted in way that is very close to reality.

The information about the paper and paint I have used, the size and availability of this watercolour painting can be found in the link at the 'Galerie' page of my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com

Mushrooms - end of summer

 

My first mushroom painting of this year. 

There will be more mushroom paintings in the next months as I hope to make some nice reference pictures during our walks. The reference picture for this watercolour was made by my husband a few weeks ago.

The picture shows some large white mushrooms and dark green nettle leaves. 

As the mushrooms were pictures from above, it was not really easy to paint them as recognizable mushrooms. I have added some extra leaves, stalks and shadows to turn this scene into a better painting. Yes, there was a challenge here.

The contrast between the light mushrooms and the darkness of the soil and the nettle leaves was what made my husband make the reference picture in the first place so I have done my best to emphasize that contrast in my painting. 

I have used a small size paper and some dark colours that are relatively new for me.  The result is what I hoped it would be and I am inspired to use these colours more often.

The information about the materials I have used, the size and availability can be found in the link at the 'Galerie' page of my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com

A group of mushrooms

In my 'archives' are lots of pictures with mushrooms, all taken during autumnal walks in forest areas all over this part of Europe. Usually we don't go far for our autumn vacations, sometimes The Ardennes (Belgium) sometimes The Eiffel (Germany) and sometimes we go to Normandy (France). Where this group of mushrooms was growing is something I cannot really remember, it could even be very close to my home.
I also do not know the name of the species, most mushrooms are hard to identify from a picture and without large volumes of botanical books.

They are beautiful and that is reason enough to make a picture and to paint them.
I have made a brown background in earth colours and placed the group of mushrooms on that background. 
Most of the shapes are defined by negative painting - I have painted the shadows around the hoods and stems of the mushrooms. The hoods were made just a little bit darker than the background, using the same colours in a stronger mixture.

The negative painting technique is one that I do not use very often, but for this painting it was the natural thing to do. The resulting painting is what I hoped it would be.

The details about paper, paints, size and availability can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

Time for mushrooms again!

Now autumn is really here, after a few days with a lot of rain there are also mushrooms everywhere. That gave me the idea to look into my reference pictures again, looking for a nice mushroom to paint or draw. These reference pictures are mostly made by my husband (he holds the camera most of the times we are walking) and I keep them until I get inspired to use one or more of these pictures.

This time I chose a 'false chanterelle' for my model-of-the-day. As usual I had to look in a book about mushrooms to know the name of this one.

On a sheet of paper I made a watercolour under painting, using the earth colours in my palette. For this under painting I have chosen to use study quality paints, one of the reasons for that is they are gathering dust now and that is a waste of good paint. These may not be the best paints but nevertheless they are good quality and can be used for an under painting like this.
The under painting has only one layer of paint, so the pencil work can stand out against it.

For the mushrooms and the grasses I have used Graphitint pencils (by Derwent) and only the mushrooms have had a touch of water, changing the colours a bit and filling up the little wells in the paper. The grasses are a bit ragged now, and that is exactly what I wanted them to be this late in the year. Two of the mushrooms had some lines drawn with a Line Marker, but these do not really stand out much. The difference is visible, but very subtle.

Working on this drawing was fun and I am happy with the result.

The details about the paper and all the colours of watercolour and Graphitint pencils I used can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

Mushroom - if I only knew which one this is....

We are having a nice summer here, not as hot as last year and some days, even weeks with rain to keep our nature hydrated.
Last weekend we went for some signposted walks near the Visitors Centre in Oisterwijk (Netherlands) and made some nice pictures while we were walking. Those will be used as reference pictures later.

Near the entrance of the Visitors Centre were some logs of dead wood, nor even the bark was left on it, so I have no idea what trees these used to be. Growing from one of these logs there was  a nice group of mushrooms, white, light yellow and a bit of orange. (I have not been able to find the name of the mushrooms) I did make some reference pictures and decided to paint these in my 'white on black' technique, with the use of some watercolour pencils for the details that don't want to be painted.

Of course that needs to be explained: the black paper I am using is not watercolour paper, it absorbs a lot of water and paint before the white stands out. This really takes five or more layers. The log of dead wood that provides the food for the mushroom is very dark and does not need so many layers of paint, but the few details of the log I did want to show would 'sink into the paper' if I used my paint for them. So here is where my pencils come into the process and the details are there where I want them to be.

I really like the results I get with this technique. At first, I only mixed gouache and watercolour, but the pencils really add that something I missed in some of my first 'white on black' paintings.

More information about this painting (materials and colours used, size, contact information, etc) can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

Mushrooms again - trying out a new watercolour paper.

The last few days I have been free from my job, so after all the household chores were finished I wanted to paint. For these occasions I have an album with lots of mushroom pictures made by my husband or my daughter during autumnal walks. I just have to select one, think about how I want to paint this and get started.
Last year I bought a small block with Canson Montval paper, because of the convenient small size, ideal to bring with me on vacations. I did not need it last vacation so I decided to try the paper now. This time I used a reference made by my husband Peter.

The first - dark - painting is made in my usual manner: soaking and stretching my paper and then painting with a lot of water. The paper did not take that very well so I put a note on the block reminding me not to soak the paper before using it. After soaking it looked like the paper was pilling and I am not used to that.
I have tried to paint the background first and that too was a challenge, but after several stages of adding colour, washing with water, spreading out the colour and repeating where possible the background may be overworked, but it could be worse. Then I added the colours of the mushrooms and used a wooden pricker to draw the lines on the hoods of the mushrooms. 

The second painting was made on dry paper that had not been soaked and stretched. I started with the mushrooms and added the background colours later. having learned from the first painting, I did not try to make a dark, dramatic background but just added some colour variations by changing the mixture of blue, yellow and some Burnt Sienna that gives the green of the mosses under the mushrooms. And even here I had to be careful not to use too much water. For extra texture I splattered over the green mosses with the mixture I used for the mushrooms.
To make the mushrooms stand out I used Calligraphy Ink for some of the outlines and the lines on the hoods.

I have learned a lot about this watercolour paper - at least what I can not do with it and I will use it again of course, probably with the wash-and-ink technique or watercolour pencils.

More information about these paintings can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

Still time for mushrooms!

I am still in the mood for painting mushrooms so this is the second painting after a picture my husband took in the Sauerland. As I said in my previous post, there were lots of mushrooms in lots of different colours in that forest.

This is a group of brown mushrooms growing close together and all in almost the same shade of brown. I decider to use calligraphy ink to outline the mushrooms and then try to fill them with the correct colour. That shade of brown was not easy to find at first, but mixing my Burnt Umber with Indian Red gave the perfect final touch.

For the background I worked with two shades of green and a sprinkle of salt over a brown background. After that all had dried and the salt was rubbed off I used some darker shades of green for shadows and a bit of texture in the landscape.

This was fun to do and I am happy with the result.
These paintings of mushrooms are experiments with materials and colours and they give me the experience I need to introduce something new in my landscapes.

More information about this painting (colours, ink, paper etc) can be found at my website  www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

Time for mushrooms!

Sometimes I like to paint mushrooms and for that purpose I have a lot of reference pictures, taken for me each autumn. 
The reference picture for this painting is taken by my husband, about three years ago. We were on a walk in the forests of Sauerland - in Germany. There were lots and lots of mushrooms in all possible colours.
These looked a bit grey on green moss. The moss is something I never achieved as I like it to be so this time I decided to make a very different background. 

When I was looking carefully at the mushrooms to draw them correctly I saw the grey was actually a bit violet and a bit orange. So the mushrooms have been painted in those two colours. I added the twigs in order to connect the mushrooms and make it one painting instead of several 'portraits of a mushroom' on one sheet of paper.

Unfortunately it was hard to make a good picture, the real painting has a bit more red in its overall impression.

More information (size, colours and paper used etc) can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

Mushrooms - now in white on black

This is a painting I made over a month ago. I am posting it just now, because these white-on-black paintings are hard to take a picture from. 
Using flash is making the black paper look grey so that's not a good idea. The last few months we had very little daylight, just short days with lots and lots of clouds..... and my simple camera is not perfect for this kind of picture.
Both the reference photo and the picture of my painting were made by my daughter Mariska. She is a much better photographer than I am!

I have done these mushrooms in watercolour and I thought it to be a nice exercise to make a white-on-black of the same scene. I really liked doing this one. The result is different from the watercolour of course and that is what makes the fun here.

More information about this painting (and the watercolour I mentioned) can be found at www.jannekesatelier.co.nr 

Mushrooms on a tree trunk

Autumn is the time of the mushroom, so on our short trip to the National Reserve of the Veluwe my daughter collected mushrooms - with her camera.
She made lots of pictures of beautiful mushrooms but this one wanted to be painted first.
The little mushrooms grow out of a tree trunk on a spot without bark. As I wanted to draw the attention to the mushrooms, I did not paint all the details of the wood and the resin but just hinted at the colours of the mushroom's background. I made use of masking fluid to keep the shapes of the mushrooms as I had been drawing them on my paper and after removing the mask I painted the details of the mushrooms.
Unfortunately it is not easy to determine the species of mushroom I painted...

More information about this painting (colours used, size, etc) can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.co.nr