This year I could not resist the temptation to paint my 'Christmas Rose' or Helleborus Niger. I have made my reference pictures when the flowers were not even completely opened and made up a nice composition with three flowers and some of the leaves that are surrounding them.
A few weeks ago I have bought a new colour and I wanted to find out what I could and could not do with it.
The new colour (Caput mortuum violet) is in the background and I have also used the background colour in the mixtures for the stems and leaves. This is not only to bring unity to the whole scene, but also because this colour really is in the stems and the darker spots on the leaves of the plant.
I did not want to make a really dark background to make the white flowers stand out, that is something I have done several years ago. I wanted another approach to the theme of white flowers so there is just a little of the background colour behind the flowers. They still do stand out enough to be seen and the atmosphere of the whole scene is just what I wanted it to be.
The details about paper and paints used, size, availability and contact information can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com
Back home again after a week of painting and learning means driving home in the first place, washing clothes, putting all painting stuff in their places in the little studio and posting my artwork on my website, blog and Instagram.
In short, there is a bit of a distance between the vacation and where I am now, not only because of the three hours drive home. I have returned to normal life again.
I still want to continue painting like I have done last week under the guidance of Ad van Aart and there is a deadline for a challenge.
The August challenge of 'Goed Gezien - Goed Bekeken' (the amateur art association of which I am a member) is all about coming home after a vacation or any other trip.
So what do I come home to?
Lots of things, but in this case I found a very patient model in the cucumber plant in my garden. I have sketched flowers, leaves and one cucumber and made a composition out of these shapes that would fit on the sheet of paper I have chosen for this painting.
There were some more shades of yellow to experiment with and I have chosen to paint the leaves in the green shades that appear when a grayish blue is mixed with one of my yellow colours.
The yellow background did interfere with the mixtures of green, as was to be expected. That is one of the nice challenges of watercolour, the background colour will always be part of the result.
I have tried to return to that 'state of mind' I was in during that wonderful week in Milonga and I think I could do that quite well. Now I have to make my decisions (about composition, these are the ones that still make me feel insecure) all on my own, without any help from a teacher, but I just want to be able to do this, so I have to practise!
Last Saturday I left France with a lot of ideas so I will continue painting in the weeks to come and I hope I will lose my insecurities about composition while painting.
The details about the materials I used and other information can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com
My garden has a lot of beautiful plants and I really love to see them grow bigger and bigger each year. One of my favourites is the bunch of peonies that grows each spring - and fades away with wonderful autumn colours.
Of course the flowers are great, but somehow I enjoy the flower buds even more.
They are very colourful and invite me to make a painting or drawing each year.
This spring I have accepted that invitation and made some reference pictures of the most inspiring flower buds and combined these into one drawing.
The sun was shining when I made the pictures, but the colours were still visible.
When the flowers are 'out' they will be various shades of pink, but the buds have a lot of carmine.
Somehow I prefer drawing when it is about flowers, the budding leaves of my chestnut tree and other slightly botanical subjects. Maybe because of the control that pencils give me, and my wish to be a bit more accurate with these subjects than I am when painting a landscape.
I have used a lot of different colours on a study quality watercolour paper and I am really happy with the results. Unfortunately I still cannot make great pictures of my art, the paper I used is white and I have trouble to remove the blue haze . I have chosen for the best colours for my drawing as possible and accepted the blue haze on the paper.
More information (colours used, size, availability, etc) can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com
This year the Hellebore bloomed with a few white flowers, but to our surprise one of them came up and bloomed at some distance of the original plant. Such a brave little flower had to be honoured with some pictures and eventually a painting.
The beach tree trunk is not a real tree anymore, it is part of our bird feeding spot, a little house is made on top for feeding breadcrumbs ans other stuff to the hungry birds that visit our garden.
This is in sight of our window and I really liked the surprise of the flower under the bird feeder.
This painting was made 'white on black' using not only the gouache and watercolour but also watercolour pencils. This was an experiment with this kind of mixed media, but the result is as I hoped it would be.
I have submitted this one to the April Challenge of "Goed Gezien - Goed Bekeken", the amateur art association of which I am a member. The theme of the challenge is 'Springtime' and I thought this to be a fitting subject.
More information about this painting (size, materials used, contact information, availability, etc) can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com
