The mud flats of Voorne (Netherlands)

 

The last day of our week full of lessons and advice from our teacher Ad van Aart I wanted to make a watercolour painting after the reference pictures I made during a walk in our beautiful nature.

My husband and me went for a walk at the South end of the Maasvlakte, where over the last decades some new nature has formed where the sea used to be. The mud flats are not accessible for public, these are resting areas for birds and seals. When we were there, the seals were out, but some birds were feeding near the water.

The lesson of using only two elements in my painting (water and one other) is applied here as well, so I have only painted the mud flats with the streams and the sea in the background. The horizon is at the top of my painting.

The advice I got from Ad for this painting was mostly about preserving the light in my painting, the sunshine on the water and on the wet sand in the background were important features to remember while painting. Where there is sunlight, there also are shadows and that is what I used to define the shapes of the sand banks and mud flats. 

This painting took me almost a whole day to paint, drying time was long as the air was damp and I had chosen a larger size paper.

The information about the paper and paints I have used, the size and availability of this watercolour painting can be found in the link at the 'Galerie' page of my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com

Reflection, Iceland

 

Improving my skills in painting water also means painting reflections in water and our teacher Ad van Aart had the perfect picture for me to paint from (thank you!). 

This is another scene in Iceland and looking at all these pictures (to select the perfect one to paint from) made me want to visit Iceland as well. Maybe that can happen in the future.

The reflection in the picture was almost a perfect mirror image, so the challenge was to show that slight imperfection in my painting, but I should not overdo it. The black volcanic rock still is another challenge, as I should not overdo that either.

Of course things were not perfect at first, but watercolour can be forgiving and I could remove some of the blackness that was too much and the result is a landscape painting of which I am proud.

The rock in the foreground was added last, we decided this rock should be in the painting (it was there in the reference picture) because it improves the whole scene.

This painting was quite a struggle, it took me a long time to complete this one. Because of the hot weather we had all week I took my time, there was no need to rush things and ruin a painting. Maybe the weather was also slowing me down for another reason, the drying time of a wet surface was longer than expected on such a hot day. 

As said, I am happy with this painting, the result is worth the effort I put into it and I definitely have learned something while painting this scene.

The information about the materials I have used, the size and availability of this watercolour can be found in the link at the 'Galerie' page of my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com

The forest edge

 

Last week I had a warm but wonderful painting vacation on the edge of the village of Holthees, in the Netherlands. Our teacher and coach was Ad van Aart.

This year I wanted to work on my skills in painting water, from lakes to rivers, from reflections to waterfalls and this little trench on the edge of the forest near our residence of the week is my first project of the week.

We started as usual with some exercises in 'blind contour drawing' and I made some of this trench. I also made some reference pictures. The pictures did show a lot of light at the end of the trench, where reality did show more landscape. I like the light effect and decided to combine that element of my picture with the lines in my 'blind contour drawing'.

Of course I did return to the scene in the afternoon to check on the trees and bushes to make the forest ground beside the edges of the trench more lively. There were some grasses and herbs on the foreground - where I was standing - and I have suggested these as well.

Combining a very loose draing with a reference picture and reality was a nice challenge for me and I am happy with the advice given to me by our teacher Ad to improve my painting.

The information about the materials I have used, the size and availability of this watercolour painting can be found in the link on the 'Galerie' page of my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com

Lingebos - east

When we were walking in the recreation area 'Het Lingebos' I did not only see thistles and bumble bees, there was much more. The area is part of the river basin of the river Linge, so there is a lot of water. The reference picture for this painting was made standing on one of the many small bridges and I liked the curve in the river, the reflections and of course the reeds, trees and bushes on the riversides.

In the curve there is some duckweed and painting that has always been a challenge for me, so I decided that I need more practice.
I am happy with this result, but I k now I will have to paint more scenes with duckweed and other water plants to make this a part of my 'toolbox'.

After having painted flowers, leaves and berries for a long time it is time to change the subject in which I want to improve my skills, and I have decided on water. That will include small rivers like this, or the larger ones that are close to my home and of course seascapes, waves and if possible waterfalls in all shapes and sizes. In all kinds of weather conditions if possible. 

The information about the paper and paints I have used, the size of this painting and the availability can be found in the link at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

Moors

After a lot of rainy days we had one day with sunshine and so we went for a walk in the Natural Reserve "Kalmthoutse Heide", which is on the border of Belgium and The Netherlands, not far from where I live.
Of course there was a lot of water on the paths and in the moors and I made some reference pictures of these (almost) flooded moors. 
The first picture I took was just water and grass, no horizon, just for the reflections and what was below the water surface. During the rest of the walk I thought of how I would paint this scene and I made a plan.

On heavy black paper I painted the blue background of the water with the reflections of the sky and I indicated the grasses with some dark colours where the shadows and the wet areas are and light colours where the grasses are growing.
After that dried completely  I used watercolour pencils and a Graphitint Pencil for the blades and for extra texture in the wet areas of the groups of the grasses. This was the stage where the painting started to look right and I am really happy with the result.

The scene is almost abstract and I liked to do this painting - for a change. Usually I paint landscape scenes with a horizon, this time I focussed on a detail.

The description of the paints and pencils I have used, the size of the painting and the availability can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

Bayeux - the old town

During our short vacation in Normandy (France) we visited the town of Bayeux, mostly because our vacation home was very close to that medieval town.
We did go to see the Tapestry and the Cathedral and walked back to our car by the river Aure that flows through the town. There are two watermills in Bayeux that are still working.

We did have many nice views during our walk in Bayeux, but this one inspired me to paint.
It is quite a change after what I painted before, to do a scene with all those roofs and buildings, but I wanted to paint the colours of the houses we saw in that part of Normandy.

The roofs of the buildings in Bayeux are grey, the colour of slate. The buildings are made with a yellow stone. Even the cathedral has these colours and in the villages we passed we also saw that this stone was used for houses and farms. 

While I was painting this scene I thought I made a wrong choice more than once, because this was not easy. Mostly because the scene is not what I usually paint and also a bit because I was not having ideal painting conditions like I have in my little studio at home. 
In short, this was a fight - with myself, the paper, the paint, the subject, etc.
When I was about to give up, my husband said the painting is nice and I should have a rest and a cup of coffee. That helped.

This watercolour painting is not about the architecture of Old Bayeux, but about how it feels to walk there between those yellow stone buildings by the river Aure and I think I managed to paint that - even though it was not easy to do so.

The details about paper and paint, size, availability etc. can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

On the banks of the lake - Oisterwijk

A few weeks ago, during a nice warm sunny day, my husband Peter and me went for some signposted walks in our beautiful nature. 
The first stop we made was in Oisterwijk, at the Information Centre of the Natural Reserve which is the beginning point of several nice signposted walks.

This time we chose a walk of 3,5 kilometres passing by three fens or forest lakes. The biggest of these three is called 'Kolkven' and on the banks of that fen we made some pictures.
The sun was shining brightly and some of the pictures were very back lit, some other had the 'flare' that often appears on pictures when the sun is reflected in the water.

The sun is just left of the camera on the reference picture for this painting, but I had to 'correct' for the flares and reflections of the sun. In other words, I used my artistic licence here to paint the sky and its reflection in the water of the 'Kolkven'.

The seed fluff of the reeds did stand out nicely against the background of the distant trees and their reflection in the water, the reeds themselves were partly back lit but the light colours were showing at the edges of the plants.
The few reeds growing higher than the rest of the plant and appearing above the background trees completed the composition.

As this is the end of winter, there are mostly dark colours in the vegetation, with the exception of the yellows of the reeds and the light colours of the seed fluff.

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

Rain is coming!

Autumn in The Netherlands can be a wet season. Wind and rain are normal these days and we usually take either raincoats or umbrellas with us when we go outside.
This was one of those days. We had a family reunion in the old harbor town of Elburg, in the northern part of the Veluwe. The old town is a protected area and outside the old city walls the landscape is rural. On one side is what remains of the once dangerous 'Zuiderzee', the Veluwemeer, a small lake between the 'old' and the 'new' land.

This somewhat overcast view attracted my attention so I made some quick reference pictures before it actually started to rain again. 

It may be autumn yet, not all trees have lost their green colours. There is a lot of yellow and brown visible already, promising more fantastic autumnal splendor to look forward to.

For this watercolour painting I decided to use a quarter of a sheet of paper and a limited palette of blues, yellows and a brown colour. I am getting used to mixing my shades of green from blue and yellow paints and I am more and more satisfied with the results of these mixtures. I just have to keep in mind that I want to use transparent blues and yellows for this and my greens will be nice and transparent too.

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

Kinderdijk - 2

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 

  

Kinderdijk

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 

Broekpolder in winter - monochromatic version

As I have told before, sometimes I like to make a second version of a painting. 
This time I wanted to do a monochromatic version, using - and exploring the possibilities of - Payne's Grey.
Last year I decided to explore the materials and colours that i have gathered over the years and this is one of those experiments.
I used the same reference from the Broekpolder that I painted from just one day earlier.
The composition and the problems I faced were fresh in my mind so the colour was my only challenge.
Payne's Grey is made up with more than one pigment, so I tried to use that.
This is a much smaller painting than the coloured one, only a quarter of that size.
When I look at both paintings, I cannot say which one I prefer, they have both strong points and weaker points. 
This monochromatic painting does not represent the sunset very well, the wintery feeling is stronger here.

More information can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

Broekpolder in winter

We did have some nice weather this winter. Around Christmas we visited my mother-in-law and went for a walk in the 'Broekpolder'. This is an area of wet nature between Vlaardingen and Maassluis, used for water storage in times of heavy rains and recreation in all times. 

It was a cold day but we had not much wind and enough sunshine to keep us warm. As the days are short around Christmas, the sun was setting by the time we finished our walk.

The area is really nice, there are children's playgrounds near the parking lots and the hiking paths are well kept. It would be nice to visit this area in summer, when all is green.

I made some reference pictures with the setting sun and the clouds and this is the first painting I made after those references.

This was not easy, the lower clouds have a yellow lining instead of the usual white and some of them are really dark, all because of the sun that is setting behind them.

I had to avoid mixing the blue and yellow colours of the sky and add the clouds carefully in order to keep my grey mixture together.

I usually mix grey clouds from French Ultramarine and a brown - depending on the season - and on wet paper the blue granulates nicely, but the brown colour tends to flow a bit more. So if I am not careful I will end up with blue clouds that have a brown lining.

The yellow colour of the sky is reflected in the water, as are the clouds. A bit of wind makes the reflections blurry.

In the water are the remains of some trees and bushes. Now the water level is high, they are drowned and will eventually disappear.

More information about this watercolour painting can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

Ardennes - day 4

Today we are halfway our painting vacation. To give us a change from all those colours our teachers planned a black and white day - with charcoal or ink.
Because I worked monochromatic yesterday I decided to work on watercolour paper and make an 'under-painting' by pouring diluted paint and moving my paper a bit until I had a nice surprise for result.
After drying I started drawing with charcoal in my usual way. The underground was unfamiliar for charcoal, but it turned out really nice!

We had a different subject today, we drove to a nice little bridge surrounded by bushes and trees.
I really had no problem getting inspired here!

Walking around the 'Naardermeer' - 6

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 

Walking around 'Naardermeer' - 2a

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 

Walking around 'Naardermeer' - 2

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. 

Walking around the 'Naardermeer'

Last weekend we went for a walk around the Naardermeer - and 'we' are my husband, my son, my son's girlfriend and me. The walk is about 20 kms and we made lots of pictures. 

The Naardermeer is a very special area in the Netherlands, so I give some information I translated from the Wikipedia page: 
"Naardermeer is a protected area on the northwestern border of the Gooi, between Muiderberg, Naarden, Hilversum  and Weesp. It is a lake area with reeds, meadows and swamp. It accommodates many (unique) wetland plants and animals, such as cormorants. It was the first area that Natuurmonumenten purchased after its creation in 1906 to protect, and was the first Dutch nature reserve."
"In 1874, the Eastern Railway between Amsterdam and Amersfoort was inaugurated. This line cuts through Naardermeer from west to east."
Of course there is much more information to be found, but these quotes describe the area very well.

As I already mentioned, we made lots of pictures and a large part of those pictures have the railway and some trains in them. 
The weather was cloudy and after some time we were feeling windswept.

I had to choose a picture to be the first to be painted and this was my choice: clouds, fields, the railroad, water, reeds and even the remains of a gate are in it.

The landscape has much more variations and surprises, so there are more watercolour paintings to come.

More information about this watercolour (size, colours used, etc) can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.tk 

please note: my website's address has changed a bit due to circumstances beyond our influence. 

Hong Kong - by night

Hong Kong (by night) has been painted before and will be painted many times more. 
Some years ago I made a watercolour showing a very, very rainy day and this time I used a nightly scene.
The reference pictures for both paintings were made by my son Martijn, who visited Hong Kong while he was in South Korea for an internship. 
The pictures for this painting have been 'waiting to be painted' for almost four years now.
I am not very at ease with a cityscape but over the last few years I have painted them more often and I am learning to really appreciate them.
Working like this, with white gouache and mixing it with my watercolours is really fun for a change. I also have to work with a different painting technique so I learn a lot while working like this.

More information about this painting (and the watercolour I mentioned) can be found at my website  www.jannekesatelier.co.nr 

Composition in green - unexpected views in Rotterdam

There is a tiny bit of 'real' nature in Rotterdam: the Island of Brienenoord. Of course it's in the river, a bit under the Brienenoord-bridge and it's green!
At that place the river is still in open connection with the sea, so there is tidal movement which makes the island a special little spot of nature in our country.
We went to discover it on a nice warm - not too hot - day and while the others were making photos I was sketching. This willow tree had not been able to remain standing up but it is not beaten yet! From the trunk new branches are growing and blocking the view towards the other side of the little pond.
Everything was green that day, the grass, the bushes, the foliage of the trees, even the water in the pond looked green. Only the sky was blue - ish.
From my sketches I made this composition. Because the fallen tree is my main subject I did not include details of all those trees in the background.
The little waterbird made its presence well known, so I honoured its efforts.

More about this watercolour (size, colours used) can be found at www.jannekesatelier.co.nr