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 

Exposition in 'Kerkcentrum Holy' in Vlaardingen, the Netherlands

Last year I responded to a call for artists willing to join the summer exhibition in the Church centre in Vlaardingen-Holy. Two of my watercolour paintings were accepted and were in a exposition for about three months.

When that arrangement was made, I was also offered six weeks of solo-exposition in the same centre, beginning today March 13th until April 19th.

Last weeks I have been selecting and framing my paintings for this exhibition. 

I have chosen to show a variety of techniques and mostly the landscapes of The Netherlands as subject.

So this morning we packed the fifteen selected paintings in the car and drove to the town of Vlaardingen to hang the exposition.

This is an impression of the results of our work:

Eight large watercolours in a long row, three smaller ones on another wall and a wall with four varied works: a mixed media with pencil, two gouache works on black background and one charcoal drawing.

More information about this exposition can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com under the button 'Expositions'

'Allerheiligen' waterfalls - a second attempt

Last autumn we were in the Black Forest - in Germany - for a short vacation. During that trip we visited the ruins and waterfalls of Allerheiligen. 

The ruins have been painted (and will be painted again) and during the vacation I already painted the waterfalls once and I promised myself that I would paint them again.
Waterfalls are not an easy subject for me, because I have to go on vacation to visit them. In our flat country there are no waterfalls to be found. At least nothing over a meter.

As I have written in my first post about these falls, the Allerheiligen waterfalls are a series of falls cascading down around the mountain. To visit them safely there are stairways and platforms beside the falling water.
At that time my knees were giving me messages about 'age' and 'not in shape for this terrain' so I stood sketching some of the falls as my husband went down a bit further to make lots of photographs. This painting is made after one of my sketches.

For this painting I chose to do a small size using only two colours. This enables me to focus on the falls; how to paint them in a way that they can still be recognized as waterfalls. On top of the scene is a small waterfall, which is mostly in the shadows of the rocks and trees surrounding the falls and the path beside them. 

As it was my goal to make a recognizable waterfall, I think I have succeeded with this painting. Of course I will have to paint much more waterfalls to improve my skills on this subject.

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

Some information about 'Sallandse Heuvelrug'

The past few months I have painted scenes from one of our Natural Reserves, the 'Sallandse Heuvelrug'. In the posts dedicated to those paintings i already gave some information about the history of the area.
As I did with the 'Naardermeer', I am now posting a map of the area.
This map is part of a brochure published by the organisations that share the stewardship over the area. The numbers 1, 2 and 3 indicate information centers owned by those organisations. At every information center are start points for several signposted walks, varying from two to sixteen kilometers in length. 

As it was winter we chose walks of five to ten kilometers. The days are short in winter and visitors are only allowed between sunrise and sunset, so we decided to do these walks instead of the longer ones. That is better in the summertime, when the days are much longer.

We started our walks from the point indicated with 1, the point indicated with 3, and the parking place that is indicated halfway between 1 and 2.
Most of the time we walked on the moors (colour purple) although all three walks started and ended in a piece of wood (colour green).
For people living in the west of our country, between the rivers, those moorlands are something special, so we like to visit them when we are on a short trip. I can imagine the people living in the area of the 'Sallandse Heuvelrug' are interested in visiting our flat lands, dikes, windmills and lots of water. 

If you like to see the paintings and drawings I made (and will make after today) you are welcome to visit my website: www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

'Sallandse Heuvelrug' The sheepfold - a charcoal drawing

Most of the Natural Reserve 'Sallandse Heuvelrug' is heath, and where you find heath, there are sheep. Therefore we were not surprised that one of the trails we followed came by a sheepfold. In winter it is closed to the public, so we walked by and my son Martijn made some pictures for me, so I could gather courage again and paint or draw a building among trees.
That is something I like to do, for these older buildings are really picturesque in their own way but I really have to practice this kind of subject a lot.
When I make a watercolour painting after a scene like this the dark colours of the building always trouble me. For this drawing, I made the sheepfold not as black as it is in reality. This enables me to show the shapes and angles of the building.

This is a scene in winter, that makes the trees easier and we had foggy weather, so everything was dark because of the moist and there are no shadows. 
At this point, somewhere in between the trees, the fog was not as dense as it was in the open areas.

The sheepfold is protected by some woodland and the reference pictures were taken from the path we were following. More to the right (not pictured) and to the back were some meadows and directly next to the building is a path of fine stone chippings.

I liked doing this. Charcoal is nice to work with - if you don't mind black fingers - and sometimes you are challenged by the same problems that you have to face when working on a watercolour painting. 

More information can be found at 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