Last October we had one bright day in Port-en-Bessin (Normandy,France) and we enjoyed it from the first until the last moment. During our stay there I have already painted the sunrise, this is the sunset of that day.
We did not see the sun set in the sea, there were the cliffs on the horizon that were hiding the view we hoped for, but the colours of the sky were great.
My husband made a few pictures and today I have painted that scene.
I have chosen to do a 'portrait' format so I could paint a lot of sky. The cliffs are really far away and not much detail was visible in this light and the sea was looking calm so I decided to let these elements be of lesser importance. The clouds behind the cliffs on the horizon are only suggested here, I remember they were very hazy.
The details about paper and paints used, size and availability can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com
Last winter my daughter Mariska traveled to Germany for a week to visit a friend.
Somewhere in the last hours of the journey the sunset was beautifully visible from the train and she took some pictures with the idea that I might be able to use at least one of them.
In this scene the clouds are very feathery which is one of the attractions for me. I do not often get the chance to try to paint that kind of sky, we usually have clouds that are much more impressive.
The sun setting behind the trees is also really nice - and quite a challenge to get it believable.
For this painting I decided to make a small size and try to work with Indigo. That colour is perfect for evening skies, but not always easy to work with. When diluted too much it gets a greenish shade which does not fit in a sky - unless there is a thunderstorm approaching of course.
For more information about this painting (size, paper and colours used, etc) I invite you to visit my website www.jannekesatelier.co.nr
It's almost sunset at the beach of the North Sea, some people are still walking on the floodline and the clouds look great.
My husband Peter took the reference photo for me last september and it took me a few months to make a plan to paint it.
Usually I paint the sky wet-in-wet, but sometimes that does not work well with the greys I mix for the clouds. So I tried a different approach.
First I made an underpainting in the sky with yellow and a bit blue. I left the sun open. After this was completely dry I mixed a blueish grey and made the clouds, adding water where I wanted the colour to flow. I also added the grey to the sky where needed.
After this had dried again I added sea and sand and in the final stage I added details to the waves, the tracks in the sand and the people on the shoreline.
I am very happy with the result of this technique and will use it again for sure.
More information about this watercolour painting (size, colours and paper used, etc.) can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.co.nr
The colours of autumn are really great to work with, so I could not resist the temptation to make another painting with them. For this one I used a sketch I made after a picture my daughter Mariska made in Portugal.
When you walk around the church of Santa Luzia above Viana do Castelo you get this view of dome of the church. The foreground is a combination of bushes and treetops.
For this painting I imagined a strong backlight so the details of the dome would not be visible.
More information about this painting and the one I painted from this sketch before can be found at www.jannekesatelier.co.nr
As the days grow shorter I drive to work during the hour of sunrise more and more often, and I can enjoy the wonderful colours in the sky. Most of the time there are clouds so they add to the beauty of it all. Of course I only look and try to remember in order to come home safely again in the afternoon.
The landscape of a highway with noise barriers on both sides is not really inspiring for a painting, so I only remembered the colours and the clouds and fitted them in a landscape I painted before. So in fact I re-used a sketch made from a reference photo my daughter Mariska made for me.
This scene is very close to my home, it's a view from the bridge over the river Merwede and I gave it the colours I remembered the best from those mornings a few weeks ago.
More information about this painting and the one I made before can be found at www.jannekesatelier.co.nr
