The weather in The Netherlands can be challenging. Today we planned a day of plein-air painting in the beautiful landscape of the 'Alblasserwaard' (where I live) and every time I set up my field easel it really started to rain a little. After a few attempts I gave up completely and went home. Another member of the group also gave up and most of the others were still inside the restaurant talking. Of course the sun started to shine and the rain stopped completely after I started painting in my studio.
If we had stayed on the spot, my painting probably would have been an interesting experiment in wet-on-very wet painting. Of course I was also getting wet and I quickly lost the inspiration needed for such an experiment.
The title is all about the July challenge of 'Goed Gezien - Goed Bekeken', the regional amateur art association of which I am a member. The coincidence that our day of plein-air painting had exact the kind of weather that we had to depict for the challenge made me decide to submit this painting.
The landscape is imaginary, but based on a scene near the restaurant where our group planned to meet. In the middle of the 'polder' so there are fields, paths, trees, bushes and several ditches. There were some windmills at walking distance (even with my painting stuff to transport) and cows and sheep were visible from our standing point.
I decided to paint a scene with a tree (no surprise here), some fields and the dark clouds that were over the landscape all morning. Because my paper had been wet from the rain, I had a bit of a struggle to get my dark shades in place but in my studio I can speed up the drying process when needed so this turned out the way I wanted it.
More information about this painting (materials used, size, availability, etc) can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com
Our day of Plein Air painting - with members of 'Goed Gezien - Goed Bekeken' - was longer than just that one watercolour in my previous post. Not long enough for two watercolours though so I made a charcoal drawing.
Again no architecture, but the tree that was close by the spot where I had been painting my watercolour painting.
This ash tree was very close to the water, in the foreground are the reed plants that were in the small ditch, still little as it is springtime now.
I did like to draw the way the tree almost took over the edge of the water and made sure there always will be water at its roots. In nearby ditches there were more ash trees that had done the same; the edge of the land has almost disappeared and the tree grows into the water.
I have been looking in books for more information - and to make sure what kind of tree I had been drawing - and this really is the way these trees survive in the relatively open landscape that is found in our 'polder' (there is no translation for this, sorry).
More information about this drawing (materials used, size, availability, etc) can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com
The weather is great again for painting outdoors, so I was happy that the amateur art association 'Goed Gezien - Goed Bekeken' has planned some of these outings together.
The first day was planned in the village of Meerkerk, where we were guests on the property of our chairwoman. She lives in an old farmhouse and has a nice piece of land around it where we all could find a great spot with an inspiring view.
At first I thought I would try to paint some architecture, the old farmhouse would probably inspire me. Well, I saw this view and never thought of painting farms again.
Standing on the edge of some grassland I chose the view of the water tower of Meerkerk and a row of pollard willows in front of the tower.
The air was a bit misty, filled with dust and pollen so the objects in the distance - like the background trees and the water tower behind them - were already looking a bit blurred. The pollard willows were much closer to where I was standing, there are some fields of grass between them and the background trees.
These rows of pollard willows are very common in the landscape of the area where I live and I really must remember sometimes that I have to paint these as well, because they grow mostly in 'our' river delta landscape between the rivers Lek, Merwede and Maas (Meuse).
For this painting I chose a small size paper, mostly because I feel more comfortable with that when I am painting outdoor and have to choose my subject on the spot.
More information about this watercolour painting (materials used, size, availability, contact information, etc) can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com
