The Unesco World Heritage Site of Kinderdijk is mostly famous for the windmills, but there is also a nice folktale that explains its name.
For the story I have copied the text on the Wikipedia page about Kinderdijk:
"The name Kinderdijk is Dutch for 'Children Dike'.
During the Saint Elizabeth Flood of 1421, the 'Grote Hollandse Waard' flooded, but the 'Alblasserwaard' polder stayed unflooded.
It is said that when the terrible storm had subsided, someone went to the dike between these two areas to see what could be saved. In the distance he saw a wooden cradle floating on the water. As it came nearer, some movement was detected. A cat was seen in the cradle trying to keep it in balance by jumping back and forth so that no water could get into it. As the cradle eventually came close enough to the dike for a bystander to pick up the cradle, he saw that a baby was quietly sleeping inside it, nice and dry. The cat had kept the cradle balanced and afloat."
As a reference to that nice folktale a wicker cradle is floating in the water close to the entrance of the site. As we saw the cradle floating I tried to translate the tale to our French guests. I hope they could understand enough of my French to appreciate what I was telling them.
The area has a lot of water, dikes and small bridges and not all the reeds were harvested. The windmills were in plain sight with most of the reeds cut.
I wanted to get a nice composition with some windmills of the 'ordinary' type and another one, the one on the right is a 'wipmolen' or wip mill. The reference picture I made for this purpose shows the cradle from the tale, so I decided to include the cradle in the painting, draw some extra attention to it and tell the story in my blog post.
I hope you also enjoyed the story of the baby and the cat in the cradle, surviving the flood.
More information about the painting (size, materials used, etc) can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com
The windmills of Kinderdijk are a Unesco World Heritage site and I live not very far from that place. One of the reasons we do not visit it very often, is the fact that it usually is full with sightseers.
This time we had guests from France and they liked to see the windmills. As it was still winter and a grey day, it was relatively quiet.
Our guest were making lots of pictures and we had taken our own camera as well. As the reeds were not as high as they are in summertime, we had a nice view of all of the windmills. I have been making some reference pictures during our walk and this is the first watercolour painting I made using these references.
As I said, it was still winter, but springtime is already near. There are some patches of green between the yellow stalks of the reeds. The meadows on the right are green and what I cannot show in the picture is the fact that hundreds of geese and other birds were feeding in the meadows behind the windmills. We could not see them, but they made themselves heard very well.
This is only one of the many inspiring views in the area, I have made several reference pictures to paint from. After I have posted this one I will be planning the next.
More information about this watercolour painting (size, materials used, etc.) can be found on my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com
The last scene I painted inspired me to do a charcoal drawing as well.
I want the focus to be on the white bridge standing out against the dark chestnut tree and suggest some bushes, grasses, reeds and the small stream the bridge crosses.
That is not so difficult when I am using charcoal. In fact, almost all the effect happened by itself. Charcoal may have its limits, but it is a great material to work with.
Personally, I feel very pleased with the result of my work.
More information about this charcoal drawing and the watercolour painting I made can be found at my new website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com
In our country it is almost impossible to walk that long (20 km) without passing by a farm or a bridge. Here we found a farmhouse with an old-fashioned drawbridge beside it and a large chestnut tree behind the bridge. Perfect for a picture and a painting!
I used reference pictures taken by my son Martijn and my husband Peter.
This scene also shows a road, which is for bicycles and walking only. Our natural reserves have many roads like this, to make it easy to visit the area in times when there has been a lot of rain.
In springtime everything is green and the shades of the grasses, the bushes and some of the trees cannot be told apart easily. Just the reed is a bit blueish and the chestnut tree was already heavy with leaves, so there were a lot of shadows to be seen. The fruit tree in front of the house was not so full in leaf yet.
I had some trouble with all that green again, but I think I did not (over)work my painting as much as I used to. For me it is important to keep challenging myself and try to improve on my weaker points.
More information about this painting (size, colours used etc.) can be found at my new website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com
After three paintings with blue, grey and green as most important colours, I wanted to do something different.
The scene is familiar - a small lake with reeds, some bushes and lots of clouds hanging over but now I decided to transfer that to the Twilight colours. Working like that is a bit more challenging than transferring to black and white - like when I make a charcoal drawing - but I like challenges like that.
The reference picture was taken by my son from a bird watcher's hideout overlooking the small lake called 'Hilversumse Bovenmeent'. As it was getting late in the afternoon, the birdwatchers had already left - as had the birds.
Still the view was great and worth being painted, especially with those clouds.
More information about this watercolour and the other paintings I made after our walk around the 'Naardermeer' can be found at my new website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com
This is a second version I made from a sketch I used earlier and this time I wanted to do a painting on a black background. Using white gouache and my watercolour paint I can create a painting that is very different from a watercolour on a white background.
Until now I used this technique only for night scenes, with this painting I tried a daylight scene.
I am really pleased with the result.
The technique is something I still am getting used to, but my experience is growing and problems are solved much more easily than in the first paintings I did this way.
These paintings are not so easy to picture for the purpose of showing them in this blog and other things. The light has to be good enough and my daughter has to be home to make the picture for me, my camera is not up to this task.
More information about this spot along the walk around the 'Naardermeer' is found in the blogpost with the watercolour painting I made earlier.
More information about this painting (paint and paper used, etc) can be found at www.jannekesatelier.tk
This is already the fourth scene taken from our walk around the 'Naardermeer' and there are more reference pictures waiting to be painted.
This spot is at the south eastern part of the area, where in the past years fields have been flooded to keep the water level of the natural reserve as it should be. So there is a lot of water, there are grasses and reeds and trees are only in the distance.
We were walking on a bicycle path so the watery environment did not bother us.
On both sides of the path we saw a lot of waterfowl - with young ones of course, it is springtime.
The springtime also shows in all the shades of green in the grasses and reeds. The distant trees are not having all of their foliage yet, that gives me a nice contrast for my painting.
I took the reference pictures for this painting myself, sometimes it is easier to do that than to try to explain what I want.
More information about this painting (size, paper and colours used, etc) and the other paintings I made after our walk around the 'Naardermeer' can be found at www.jannekesatelier.tk
I am planning to show the spots I painted on a map after I finished painting all the scenes I want to paint after this walk.
The walk around our Natural Reserve Naardermeer is about 20 kms long and there is a nice variety in views, landscapes, vegetation and animals.
This time I found some information on the site of the owner of the Naardermeer: Natuurmonumenten (Natural Reserves) an organisation for the protection of our nature.
"The reserve of Naardermeer consists of several lakes, such as the Great Lake and the Wijde Blik. Around it lie swamps and marshy meadows with shallow ponds. Numerous animals and plants take advantage of these wet conditions."
The reference photo for this watercolour was taken (by myself) from a lookout point overlooking the lake called 'Naardermeer' (which the reserve is named for) where it is about to flow into the 'Grote Meer'. (The Dutch word 'meer' means lake.)
I was attracted by the clouds, the reeds, the water and the bushes nearby to show the depth in the scene.
More information about this watercolour and the other one I painted after our walk around the Naardermeer can be found at www.jannekesatelier.tk
My website had to change address due to circumstances beyond our control.
