Last autumn we made a short trip to Bad Bentheim, in Germany and visited the Castle. That castle has been painted by Jacob van Ruisdael in 1653 so it's famous in our country. Of course things changed over the years so that famous view is not there anymore. The castle is surrounded by modern buildings now.
When we were entering the gate for a visit to the castle grounds I saw some really dark clouds hanging over and asked my daughter Mariska to take a reference picture for me.
It took me a few months to decide how I would use that picture.
There are some walls, a tree in front of the wall of the castle building, some trees or bushes behind the wall surrounding the area and of course those dark clouds.
Not much to make a watercolour painting very interesting, so after some thinking I decided to make a charcoal drawing. Besides, using only black and white also helps to unite the picture.
Of course I am still exploring the possibilities of charcoal, but I am really happy with this result!
More information about this drawing can be found at 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
When we visited a small part of the Veluwe called the Renderklippen last autumn, we made quite a few pictures. I already used a lot of them to paint from and this time I used two pictures my daughter Mariska made.
We were standing relatively high on top of the moraine and she made a series of pictures to create a panoramic view of the area.
From that panoramic view I chose my composition.
This scene shows a bit of the path over the moraine and through the field. As it was a foggy day, the moors and the trees in the distance are hazy, which adds to the feeling you get when walking in a landscape shaped in the last Ice Age.
More information about this painting can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.co.nr
One of my good intentions for this year is to explore my palette a bit more than I have up till now. So from time to time I will make a second painting using a sketch I made.
This time I used the scene at Borkum again (from the reference photo Katja Lemcke kindly allowed me to use) within a week after I made my first painting, but now I painted with my set of Twilight Colours.
I really like working with that set although I am not yet fully familiar with its possibilities. Never mind, the year is not over and I am looking forward to painting a lot more with these colours.
More information about this painting can be found at www.jannekesatelier.co.nr
After all those trees I wanted to do something with a lot of sky and preferably clouds.
This is a scene from Borkum, one of the Wadden Islands of Germany. I have not been there myself and that made it a bit more difficult to make this painting.
But still, I ended up with something I can show the world.
The reference photo was made by Katja Lemcke and she gave me her permission to use it.
More information about this watercolour (size, colours used, etc.) can be found at www.jannekesatelier.co.nr
Autumn is the time of the mushroom, so on our short trip to the National Reserve of the Veluwe my daughter collected mushrooms - with her camera.
She made lots of pictures of beautiful mushrooms but this one wanted to be painted first.
The little mushrooms grow out of a tree trunk on a spot without bark. As I wanted to draw the attention to the mushrooms, I did not paint all the details of the wood and the resin but just hinted at the colours of the mushroom's background. I made use of masking fluid to keep the shapes of the mushrooms as I had been drawing them on my paper and after removing the mask I painted the details of the mushrooms.
Unfortunately it is not easy to determine the species of mushroom I painted...
More information about this painting (colours used, size, etc) can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.co.nr
My inspiration still works overtime and the fact that I recently bought a book about Winterlandscape painting in the nineteenth century in The Netherlands really helps me find new ways to paint a landscape with trees.
So, inspired by the old masters I transformed an autumnal landscape into a snowscape again, now in warmer colours. The landscape is still found in a small part of our National Reserve The Veluwe; the Renderklippen.
The reference photo was made by my husband Peter.
More information about this watercolour (colours used, size, etc.) can be found at www.jannekesatelier.co.nr
