We drove through the Ardennes and came upon this nice scene.
A railroad, a little building, bushes, grasses, trees and the mountains in the background.
All in autumn colours, waiting to be sketched. I also took some reference pictures, but never used them.
I wanted to make a charcoal drawing inspired by this scene, but only black and white would take away the friendly feeling. So I made an under-painting with watercolour in autumn colours. The watercolour paper has a nice structure to work on with charcoal.
The result of the under-painting will always be a bit of a surprise. This time there was a nice surprise to work with.
This is a small size painting, I brought only smaller sizes of paper with me on vacation.
When I am painting in the 'vacation home' I don't have the same amount of space I have in my studio. And I have to be careful with the furniture in that place as it is not mine.
That is why I choose the small sizes, they are easier to manage in such circumstances.
More information about this painting can be found at my website: www.jannekesatelier.webs.com
This autumn my husband and me were on a short vacation again. This time we wanted to go a bit further from home than last year so on the way we had to make some (coffee) stops. The last one was on the parking place near Monswiller in France, just before crossing the border to Germany. The coffee was nice and so was the view from our table.
Because there was a small construction zone at the end of the parking place I only made a sketch, no reference picture.
The church tower did catch my attention. It was visible from behind some bushes and was high enough to be seen above the mountains in the distance. Houses were visible around the church and the village also has some trees.
The village is situated in a small valley but the higher parts were showing themselves, almost asking to be sketched and painted.
I decided to use warm autumn colours again and the paper I used is new for me.
I have bought a small size block of Arches paper in a special offer and decided to try that on vacation. This really is great paper!
More information about this watercolour can be found at www.jannekesatelier.webs.com
Back to my summer vacation in the Ardennes.
When we were on the spot, all I could think of was the challenge to paint in shades of green, and I made a painting I was not completely happy about. You can find the blog post here.
So I decided almost immediately to paint it again, in different colours.
A few months passed since that decision, but here is the Autumn Colour version.
Not only the colours changed, I also changed the scene a bit. I made several reference pictures and on one of them were almost all the trees and not so much of the fields. I liked the light coming from behind the tree trunks so I decided to paint that this time.
My colours are also chosen from the not-so-familiar ones with the plan to get to know them better. A few were bought on impulse because they look great on the colour chart. Now I am making them look great in a painting and that is in fact why I bought them in the first place.
More information about this watercolour painting (paper, colours, size etc) can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com
I am still in the mood for painting mushrooms so this is the second painting after a picture my husband took in the Sauerland. As I said in my previous post, there were lots of mushrooms in lots of different colours in that forest.
This is a group of brown mushrooms growing close together and all in almost the same shade of brown. I decider to use calligraphy ink to outline the mushrooms and then try to fill them with the correct colour. That shade of brown was not easy to find at first, but mixing my Burnt Umber with Indian Red gave the perfect final touch.
For the background I worked with two shades of green and a sprinkle of salt over a brown background. After that all had dried and the salt was rubbed off I used some darker shades of green for shadows and a bit of texture in the landscape.
This was fun to do and I am happy with the result.
These paintings of mushrooms are experiments with materials and colours and they give me the experience I need to introduce something new in my landscapes.
More information about this painting (colours, ink, paper etc) can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com
Sometimes I like to paint mushrooms and for that purpose I have a lot of reference pictures, taken for me each autumn.
The reference picture for this painting is taken by my husband, about three years ago. We were on a walk in the forests of Sauerland - in Germany. There were lots and lots of mushrooms in all possible colours.
These looked a bit grey on green moss. The moss is something I never achieved as I like it to be so this time I decided to make a very different background.
When I was looking carefully at the mushrooms to draw them correctly I saw the grey was actually a bit violet and a bit orange. So the mushrooms have been painted in those two colours. I added the twigs in order to connect the mushrooms and make it one painting instead of several 'portraits of a mushroom' on one sheet of paper.
Unfortunately it was hard to make a good picture, the real painting has a bit more red in its overall impression.
More information (size, colours and paper used etc) can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com
When I was browsing through my reference pictures looking for inspiration I found this scene. The picture was taken years ago and I could not exactly find who had taken it, probably my daughter. It was one of a series of snow pictures given to me for inspiration a long time ago, so I can use it as I wish.
The scene is not very far from our house.
We regularly take a walk around the quarter where we live and in the winter - with snow - the most beautiful spot of the walk looks like this.
The lights are the lanterns illuminating the highway close by. There is a screen (to block most of the noise so houses have been built nearby) which is visible in winter, when the trees and bushes are bare and the herbs are sleeping in the soil.
Sunset is early in December and the picture was taken just after the sun had disappeared.
I used some of my Twilight Colours again, combined with a yellow and an orange for the lantern lights.
More information about this watercolour painting (size, colours used, etc) can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com
The Blijdorp Zoo in Rotterdam is one of those places I visit at least once a year. Every time it is different compared to the visit before: new buildings or new animals are to be seen in the garden.
It is always crowded at the animal shelters, so there is not much 'peace and quiet' to draw the lions, tigers, birds, elephants, wolves, giraffes and other animals I might like to sketch.
So I decided to try and show the buildings of Blijdorp Zoo that were designed by the architect Sybolt van Ravesteyn,which are monuments since the year 2007.
First of them is the Rivièrahal - or a part of it.
This hall used to be a tropical greenhouse, but it is not well isolated. Being a National Monument, it was not allowed to make changes to the construction of the building, so new buildings have been constructed to take over that function and the Rivièrahal is now used for educational projects and an indoor playground.
The zoo is also a botanical garden, so lots of trees and bushes are everywhere to be found.
More information about this drawing (underpainting used etc) can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com
