Our regional amateur art association 'Goed Gezien - Goed Bekeken' has a challenge each month during this year, only for October and November the challenges are combined.
I had already painted an imaginary snow scene in October and I wanted to paint another one in November.
My husband has been to a Congress in the South of France this weekend and he sent me a picture of a real snow scene - probably from the train. So I did not have to imagine a snow scene, I had a real one for this painting.
This is a small size painting again, because this special challenge has limits to the size of our artwork. The artworks that are submitted in this challenge will be on display in a small museum in Nieuwpoort (Netherlands) in December, so they cannot be very large.
I have enjoyed painting this one, even though snow scenes can be challenging.
The details about paper and paint used, size etc can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com
October has arrived a few weeks ago and there is a new challenge for the members of 'Goed Gezien - Goed Bekeken'. We have to make a work of art with the theme 'Silent night, white splendor' and there are other art groups involved in this challenge too.
Some of the works will be seen in the month of December in museum 'Het Stadhuis' in Nieuwpoort (The Netherlands).
Because I always make something new for a challenge I had to improvise a bit. Winter is not here yet and I had to imagine a snow scene.
For this one I took the watercolour I made on the plein air painting day that was organised last May (by 'Goed Gezien - Goed Bekeken) in the area of Meerkerk (Netherlands).
The water tower may have some snow on its roof and on the ledge below and the row of bushes has got a different colour because they do catch a lot of snow.
The pollard willows have lost their foliage in autumn and the branches do not hold the snow so these trees are dark shapes now in a mostly white landscape.
The theme of the challenge is all about atmosphere - exactly what I want to depict in my paintings and the challenge for me was to find a scenery I had not done as a winter scene before.
There are some more landscapes I can convert to a winter scene, and probably I will paint one or two other watercolours that can be used for the challenge that continues until the end of November.
The details about paper, paint, size and availability of this watercolour can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com
A few weeks ago my husband Peter and me were on a short vacation in the village of Reifferscheid, Germany. We were there for the beautiful nature of the Eiffel region and we made some short walks.
During the walk we made on our last day we came across a small chapel, standing on the edge of a hill, making a nice view.
Of course we visited the chapel and made some pictures.
During the rest of the walk we had nice views of the little chapel from the other hilltops we were passing.
That little chapel inspired me, but I had to think how I wanted to paint it.
Several ideas came up and this is the first painting with the little chapel as its subject.
I have changed the scene to a forested area with snow, using the limited edition Twilight Colours for the atmosphere I wanted to paint.
There will be more paintings and I really want to paint the chapel on the edge of the hill, the way it attracted my attention.
More information about this painting (paper and colours used, size, availability, etc) can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com
Winter will be here soon and with that comes the question about the Christmas Cards of this year. So I start to search the paintings I made last year for a candidate, sometimes with success, this time not. I have painted some nice foggy winter landscapes, but those are not suitable for Christmas Cards.
That meant that I had to paint a suitable winter scene from fantasy. For inspiration I asked my daughter for some guidelines and after her reply I had to start searching for images of gatehouses. Of course I found nothing I could use directly, many gatehouses are not what I was looking for.
After some thinking this is what appeared in my sketch-book: some small buildings with a gate and a wall, a lane towards the gate and the suggestion of the continuing of that lane behind the wall, snow and lights in one of the buildings and a very small lantern by the gate.
For the colours I started with sepia but gradually I added more for the lights, the roofs and doors. And the shadows on the snow of course. And I added a small shrub of holly close to the building on the right. Look well, it really is there!
At first I was not satisfied with this painting, thinking the outlines of the buildings should be more defined. But looking at it a few days later the scene good as it is. In winter the world can be very grey and everything looks a bit dim on those days. The colour I used for the sky suggest one of those grey days so it is not necessary to alter the outlines of the buildings.
So I decided to listen to my painting and not change a thing.
More information about this watercolour painting (materials used, size, availability, etc) can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com
