Starlings swarming

It has been a few years since I had seen them, but this year they are back: almost every evening I can see starlings swarming and looking for a good place to sleep.
They do this in the last half hour before sunset and some time after, while there is still some light. 
Maybe this is only seasonal so I am enjoying these swarming birds as often as possible. 

Of course I have also been watching them with the idea of a painting somewhere in the back of my mind. Making photographs of these swarms is not easy, the birds are too small to see in a picture made using a camera with average possibilities.
Looking and remembering does work and I have made up a swarm of my own, checking it for credibility with some of my family members.

The landscape is imaginary, but it's based on/inspired by the view from the window of my little studio. The colours used are the muted colours of the evening twilight, short after sunset.

At this time of the year we are in the last weeks of winter, some of the trees are starting to show some glimpses of green and some are still bare, waiting for warmer weather.
In the fading daylight the structures of the bark of the trees disappears, most trees are just dark shapes against the sky at that time of the evening, like they are back-lit.

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

Ardennes - mixed media with starlings

The last painting day on the trips with Buitenatelier is always a day for experiments with something different.
This time we were encouraged to make stencils with (our) names and make a 'negative' cut-out. Then use the stencil to paint the name(s) and make a nice composition with it.
Those who use acrylic paint just have to use the paint they always do but I had to think of something else.
Because oil pastels are water repellent I stenciled my name with black oil pastel, then poured over two nice colours of watercolour paint and waited for that to dry. 
After that I just added trees and starlings in a very casual way and the result was - well, fun of course! I had fun thinking over this and painting the scene and the result shows how much I enjoyed working like this for a change.

More information about this painting (size, materials used etc) can be found at my website:  www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

Ardennes - the buzzard and the starlings

During the day we were painting on the fields near Wirtzfeld (see my previous post) we could hear and see buzzards in the sky above us. 
Most of the time it was only hearing them but they were really busy that day.

They were always too far away for my little camera to make a good picture, but my memory is really trained now, so I could sketch this one later the same day. I just had to make something in order to remember that part of the day.
I decided to make a charcoal drawing after my sketch because I like the black and white and also because charcoal drawings can be made in a short time.

I added some treetops, a fir tree in the foreground, clouds of course and some smaller birds - to fill up the empty space in the sky.
It had to be starlings just because every evening we had a 'ballet' of swarming starlings above the lake. These birds entertained us while we were dining and we really liked to look at them.

So this drawing is made up - as a reminder of the birds we saw and heard the most during our stay in the Ardennes.

More information about this charcoal drawing can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

Ardennes - day 6

The last painting day is always out of the ordinary. This time we were encouraged to make stencils with (our) names and use those in a painting.
That is a nice idea, so I made a small stencil using my first name. I stenciled with a black oil pastel, that does not mix with water. Then I poured two colours of diluted watercolour paint and after drying I made a simple version of a landscape. Just trees and swarms of starlings.
We had starlings swarming over the lake every evening and I felt I had to paint them sometimes - and they were perfect for today's project.
Later today we will all make an exhibition of our works and tomorrow we'll drive home.