Yesterday was my .....th birthday and I really had a great day. Last week the sun was shining almost all the time, so we could see blue skies again. That really helped getting in a festive mood!
Most people my age - and younger - don't know what to wish for, but having a painting passion gives inspiration for my wish list as well.
I am really happy with my new watercolour paper, some extra tubes of those beautiful Twilight Colours (by Winsor&Newton Artists'), paper for charcoal drawing and paper for my sketches.
I also use good quality paper for making the sketches I work from. As I mostly work after reference pictures, making a sketch is important. While making the sketch, I get acquainted with my subject and I make my first choices: what I want to show and what I think is less important. The sketch is full of details and notes.
The drawing on my watercolour paper is less detailed for I don't want to have to erase much of my pencil marks. Erasing is not always easy for sometimes it damages the painted surface - depending on the colours I used. So I have the sketch nearby when I am painting, looking at my notes and the details I put in.
I do not use my reference picture anymore at this point, all I need to know to make the painting I want to make is in my sketch and in my head....
Working like this, I can also go back to a sketch I made a long time ago and use it for another painting - sometimes to try a different colour scheme, sometimes to try to do it better and even sometimes to do a charcoal drawing.
The reference picture for this one (taken by my son Martijn) has been waiting to be painted for almost four years now. When my son showed me the pictures he had taken in Taroko Gorge, Taiwan I made a watercolour of one of them within a few weeks.
He told me about his riding a bike in that landscape with clouds hanging so low that he could not see the top of the mountains and the sound of the river everywhere.
Somehow he could not really catch that atmosphere with his camera and I accepted the challenge to paint it. At that moment I succeeded doing that and I let the other pictures rest for a while.
Now I felt it was time for another try. I decided to use another green as base for all the shades of green I had to paint. That fog is not as easy as is seems - but that may also depend on the colours and paper I am using now. (I did not use these four years ago)
Because of all the moist in the air there is nothing with really sharp outlines, yet all the structures are visible. Lots of water on my paper do help in achieving that atmosphere, but with caution as it's easily overdone.
Working on this one I did learn some more things about the colours on my palette - as is one of my goals for this year.
More information about this watercolour (and the one I painted a few years ago) can be found at www.jannekesatelier.co.nr
This is a painting I made over a month ago. I am posting it just now, because these white-on-black paintings are hard to take a picture from.
Using flash is making the black paper look grey so that's not a good idea. The last few months we had very little daylight, just short days with lots and lots of clouds..... and my simple camera is not perfect for this kind of picture.
Both the reference photo and the picture of my painting were made by my daughter Mariska. She is a much better photographer than I am!
I have done these mushrooms in watercolour and I thought it to be a nice exercise to make a white-on-black of the same scene. I really liked doing this one. The result is different from the watercolour of course and that is what makes the fun here.
More information about this painting (and the watercolour I mentioned) can be found at www.jannekesatelier.co.nr
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
Somewhere in Ireland there is this road lined with beautiful old trees. As it is a famous scene, my son Martijn visited it as a part of a touristic ride. He made some nice pictures and I got permission to use them as references.
Because the scene is famous, I wanted to make something not so ordinary. Besides, the atmosphere of that road with those trees hanging over can be a bit eerie and I wanted to lay emphasis on that aspect.
As the trees were still bare I did not have to change anything about them, just exaggerate the dark shadows a bit.
While working I was confronted with one of the limitations of charcoal: as I am working with a stick of charcoal, not a pencil, I cannot work very detailed. Well, in this case that only adds to the atmosphere I wanted to create....
More information about this charcoal drawing can be found at www.jannekesatelier.co.nr
A few years ago my son Martijn was in Seoul, South Korea for an internship. Of course he worked hard but also found time to make trips to touristic attractions.
He lived very close to Changgyeong Palace - or Changgyeonggung so he visited that site several times. In early springtime the sakura trees blossom, so he tried hard to make pictures with as few tourists as possible - and of course as much blossoms as possible.
The reference picture I used to paint this watercolour also features Okcheongyo Bridge. This bridge serves as a symbolic entry to the courtyard and is designated as National Treasure 386. (Wikipedia: Changgyeonggung)
Again it took me some time to decide on my composition, I cropped the picture a bit and changed the position and size of a few of the trees.
As the scene is in early spring I painted with soft colours and adding darks only in the trees and the shadows under the bridge. I have been adding to the depth of the shadows carefully, too little is not good, too much would be even worse.
I had fun working on this one and am really happy with the result.
More information about this painting (size, colours used) can be found at www.jannekesatelier.co.nr
As I wrote before, one of my good intentions for this year is to get to know my palette a bit better. This is a study I made in order to get more acquainted with one of the colours that I rarely use: Antwerp Blue.
I used the scene from Bentheim Castle to make a watercolour with a very limited palette, only Antwerp Blue and Burnt Umber. I already knew that by mixing those two colours I could get shades of green, perfect for the trees.
Of course those dark clouds are not so dark anymore but I did learn a few things about Antwerp Blue.
More information about this watercolour (materials used etc) can be found at www.jannekesatelier.co.nr
