Common Broom

 

The May challenge of 'Goed Gezien - Goed Bekeken' is "Hello Yellow", so we have to make something with the colour yellow. Last weekend, on the moorlands of the province Drenthe (The Netherlands) we saw the broom (Cytisus scoparius)  covered in flowers, so there I found my subject for the contribution to that challenge.

My husband made a nice reference picture for me and I made this watercolour painting, showing the flowers and only suggesting the rest of the bush. On a yellow background I made a light drawing of the flowers, added the greens of the bush and after all had dried, I painted the flowers, using two shades of yellow and hints of green for the petals and some brown for the stamens.

The result is what I hoped for.

The information about the materials I have used, the size of the painting and its availability can all be found in my Tumblr blog.

Hedge bindweed, painted in shades of yellow

After I had painted in red and orange, I wanted to paint in shades of yellow. The hedge bindweed (Calystegia sepium) flowers grow in the garden of Milonga, so it was easy to sketch a few and make a composition using the shapes of the flowers, leaves and buds.
Our teacher Ad van Aart suggested that I should try to make my background first and add the flower composition later. For the background I painted three layers of shades of yellow, taking care to leave one corner almost white and to make another corner as dark as possible with yellow as my chosen colour.

From the prepared composition the best cut out (for the background that was created) was selected - with a little help from our teacher - and drawed on the dry watercolour paper using a watercolour pencil.
Using watercolour paint in an ochre colour I accentuated the leaves and the buds, the flowers were given an extra 'shadow' with my darkest shade of yellow. Finally the flowers were given their true shape by adding fine lines of a dark earthly red colour.

This technique - painting my background first and then adding some flower shapes - is different from the Umbels paintings I made before and I like the result even more. 
In fact I have made some more paintings 'like this' during my stay in Milonga and I have plans to make more of them now that I am back home.

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