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
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 reference picture for this one (taken by my son Martijn) has been waiting to be painted for almost four years now. When my son showed me the pictures he had taken in Taroko Gorge, Taiwan I made a watercolour of one of them within a few weeks.
He told me about his riding a bike in that landscape with clouds hanging so low that he could not see the top of the mountains and the sound of the river everywhere.
Somehow he could not really catch that atmosphere with his camera and I accepted the challenge to paint it. At that moment I succeeded doing that and I let the other pictures rest for a while.
Now I felt it was time for another try. I decided to use another green as base for all the shades of green I had to paint. That fog is not as easy as is seems - but that may also depend on the colours and paper I am using now. (I did not use these four years ago)
Because of all the moist in the air there is nothing with really sharp outlines, yet all the structures are visible. Lots of water on my paper do help in achieving that atmosphere, but with caution as it's easily overdone.
Working on this one I did learn some more things about the colours on my palette - as is one of my goals for this year.
More information about this watercolour (and the one I painted a few years ago) can be found at www.jannekesatelier.co.nr
There are many facets to a landscape like that of the Ardennes. There are valleys with small rivers and so there should also be hilltops - where the wind blows!
Because of that wind I only stopped to make sketches and photos, my fingers became too cold to hold my pencil too soon. The slopes may be steep, the hilltops are round and used for cornfields and grasslands to graze sheep and horses. Trees are used to shelter the farms from the worst of the weather. I found a spot where the grass and corn fields are divided by the road and a farmhouse is just visible between those sheltering high trees.
That view inspired me and so I made my sketch with some notes to use later, in a warm and sheltered place, to make my watercolour painting.
More information about this watercolour painting (size, colours used etc.) can be found at my website: www.jannekesatelier.co.nr
