Along the railroad (Mattemburgh, Netherlands)

 

A few months ago, at the end of Summer, we (my husband and me) made a walk starting at 'Landgoed Mattemburgh' which took us through the surrounding landscape with fields, mudflats, the view of Bergen op Zoom (a town in The Netherlands) and a railroad.

The walk was nice with all those differences and I made several reference pictures for later use. This one is along the railroad, very close to a point where we had to cross it again - very safe crossings of course - looking back to where we came from.

I thought this scene could be ideal to try the panorama-shaped paper I bought  last summer so I selected a nice part of the reference picture and started painting. In fact I did not find much difficulties painting this one, I only had to get used to the size of the paper.

The painting is what I hoped it would be and I really am looking forward to other paintings on this paper. The size of the paper does set some limits to the composition, but I really like these little challenges because they make me grow as a painter.

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

If you are interested in my original artworks, please contact me.

Sunrise in autumn - walking along the railroad

Sometimes I walk to my job having a great view and this time I just had to use the opportunity to make a quick picture with my phone. The picture was not perfect of course but I have made the best of it.

The walking path and bicycle path have a bend in the distance so they don't end in the 'vanishing point'. The bushes on the slope of the railroad were dark and in the shadows so I have only suggested their shapes. At the moment I took my picture I was alone on that walking path so the scene is calm.

I have used my Twilight Colours and added a yellow and a grey-blue for the colours of the sunrise and the deepest shadows. The lines of the lamp posts and the overhead of the railroad are made with a water soluble pencil, that can be applied more subtle when needed. The Twilight Colours can also give nice dark mixtures but that would have been too dark for this purpose. 

I enjoyed painting this and experimenting a bit more with the colours on my palette.

More information about this watercolour painting can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

Evening mood in the polder

The reference photo for this watercolour painting had been waiting for almost two years now. My son Martijn lives in Almere, which is in what we call 'the New land', one of the polders made in the IJsselmeer. His birthday is in September so when we drive home after a visit the chances of a nice sunset are good. Usually my daughter Mariska makes a picture from the car when I ask her to.

Because of the poor light circumstances the fields were very dark and without structure in the reference photo so I have changed that part a bit. I had to do this from my memory because since the photo has been made, parking places have been made there.  
The railroad is still the same. On the right is the little railway station, unfortunately its structure is mostly on ground level. Behind the railroad only one building is visible. There are plans to build more of course as the town of Almere will be developed further in the next decades.

Maybe it is due to the rainy weather but painting this was not without struggle. It can also be caused by the fact that I did not soak and stretch my paper before starting to paint. The surface of the paper reacts differently to water and paint when the coating from the mill is not removed by the soaking and stretching. It's easier to remove paint this way and I had forgotten that - I remembered quickly though.
Nevertheless I made a painting I like very much.
For the first time I used Chinese White in this painting - only to highlight the moon a bit. After I had removed the masking fluid I tried to soften the edges and the result was not good, so I tried to hide that behind some clouds, and still I was not happy about it. The white paint did the trick, as it is not very opaque (like gouache) the clouds are still there, but my moon is round again.

More information about this watercolour painting (size, paper and paint used, etc) can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

On the road - in the Ardennes

We drove through the Ardennes and came upon this nice scene. 
A railroad, a little building, bushes, grasses, trees and the mountains in the background.
All in autumn colours, waiting to be sketched. I also took some reference pictures, but never used them.

I wanted to make a charcoal drawing inspired by this scene, but only black and white would take away the friendly feeling. So I made an under-painting with watercolour in autumn colours. The watercolour paper has a nice structure to work on with charcoal.
The result of the under-painting will always be a bit of a surprise. This time there was a nice surprise to work with.

This is a small size painting, I brought only smaller sizes of paper with me on vacation.
When I am painting in the 'vacation home' I don't have the same amount of space I have in my studio. And I have to be careful with the furniture in that place as it is not mine.
That is why I choose the small sizes, they are easier to manage in such circumstances.

More information about this painting can be found at my website: www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

Walking around the 'Naardermeer' - 5 an unexpected sight

Only shortly after we walked by the scene I painted with the number 4 we saw a predator hunting. My husband used all he could get out of the camera and made the picture that inspired me to do this painting.
We have been looking at both pictures he could make of the bird but we could not exactly determine the species. We think is is a harrier, but that is just a guess.
Different species of harriers are known to visit or even breed in the area of the Naardermeer so our guess could be right.

The picture is zoomed in a lot so the dark clouds in the background were large. I did pour some diluted paint over my wet paper and let it dry completely. After that I used the resulting pattern to make my clouds. After the clouds were dry I used water-soluble pencils to draw the lines of the railroad's electricity supply and the bird. Using a little bit of water I put emphasis on the bird.
This was a bit of an experiment for me, using both paint and pencils but this technique suited my subject best. 

More information about this painting and the others I made after our walk around the Naardermeer can be found at my new website  www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

Walking around the 'Naardermeer'

Last weekend we went for a walk around the Naardermeer - and 'we' are my husband, my son, my son's girlfriend and me. The walk is about 20 kms and we made lots of pictures. 

The Naardermeer is a very special area in the Netherlands, so I give some information I translated from the Wikipedia page: 
"Naardermeer is a protected area on the northwestern border of the Gooi, between Muiderberg, Naarden, Hilversum  and Weesp. It is a lake area with reeds, meadows and swamp. It accommodates many (unique) wetland plants and animals, such as cormorants. It was the first area that Natuurmonumenten purchased after its creation in 1906 to protect, and was the first Dutch nature reserve."
"In 1874, the Eastern Railway between Amsterdam and Amersfoort was inaugurated. This line cuts through Naardermeer from west to east."
Of course there is much more information to be found, but these quotes describe the area very well.

As I already mentioned, we made lots of pictures and a large part of those pictures have the railway and some trains in them. 
The weather was cloudy and after some time we were feeling windswept.

I had to choose a picture to be the first to be painted and this was my choice: clouds, fields, the railroad, water, reeds and even the remains of a gate are in it.

The landscape has much more variations and surprises, so there are more watercolour paintings to come.

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

please note: my website's address has changed a bit due to circumstances beyond our influence.