October has arrived a few weeks ago and there is a new challenge for the members of 'Goed Gezien - Goed Bekeken'. We have to make a work of art with the theme 'Silent night, white splendor' and there are other art groups involved in this challenge too.
Some of the works will be seen in the month of December in museum 'Het Stadhuis' in Nieuwpoort (The Netherlands).
Because I always make something new for a challenge I had to improvise a bit. Winter is not here yet and I had to imagine a snow scene.
For this one I took the watercolour I made on the plein air painting day that was organised last May (by 'Goed Gezien - Goed Bekeken) in the area of Meerkerk (Netherlands).
The water tower may have some snow on its roof and on the ledge below and the row of bushes has got a different colour because they do catch a lot of snow.
The pollard willows have lost their foliage in autumn and the branches do not hold the snow so these trees are dark shapes now in a mostly white landscape.
The theme of the challenge is all about atmosphere - exactly what I want to depict in my paintings and the challenge for me was to find a scenery I had not done as a winter scene before.
There are some more landscapes I can convert to a winter scene, and probably I will paint one or two other watercolours that can be used for the challenge that continues until the end of November.
The details about paper, paint, size and availability of this watercolour can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com
In my 'archives' are lots of pictures with mushrooms, all taken during autumnal walks in forest areas all over this part of Europe. Usually we don't go far for our autumn vacations, sometimes The Ardennes (Belgium) sometimes The Eiffel (Germany) and sometimes we go to Normandy (France). Where this group of mushrooms was growing is something I cannot really remember, it could even be very close to my home.
I also do not know the name of the species, most mushrooms are hard to identify from a picture and without large volumes of botanical books.
They are beautiful and that is reason enough to make a picture and to paint them.
I have made a brown background in earth colours and placed the group of mushrooms on that background.
Most of the shapes are defined by negative painting - I have painted the shadows around the hoods and stems of the mushrooms. The hoods were made just a little bit darker than the background, using the same colours in a stronger mixture.
The negative painting technique is one that I do not use very often, but for this painting it was the natural thing to do. The resulting painting is what I hoped it would be.
The details about paper, paints, size and availability can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com
Now autumn is really here, after a few days with a lot of rain there are also mushrooms everywhere. That gave me the idea to look into my reference pictures again, looking for a nice mushroom to paint or draw. These reference pictures are mostly made by my husband (he holds the camera most of the times we are walking) and I keep them until I get inspired to use one or more of these pictures.
This time I chose a 'false chanterelle' for my model-of-the-day. As usual I had to look in a book about mushrooms to know the name of this one.
On a sheet of paper I made a watercolour under painting, using the earth colours in my palette. For this under painting I have chosen to use study quality paints, one of the reasons for that is they are gathering dust now and that is a waste of good paint. These may not be the best paints but nevertheless they are good quality and can be used for an under painting like this.
The under painting has only one layer of paint, so the pencil work can stand out against it.
For the mushrooms and the grasses I have used Graphitint pencils (by Derwent) and only the mushrooms have had a touch of water, changing the colours a bit and filling up the little wells in the paper. The grasses are a bit ragged now, and that is exactly what I wanted them to be this late in the year. Two of the mushrooms had some lines drawn with a Line Marker, but these do not really stand out much. The difference is visible, but very subtle.
Working on this drawing was fun and I am happy with the result.
The details about the paper and all the colours of watercolour and Graphitint pencils I used can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com
Not far from my home is a bush with beautiful violet berries that I wanted to paint. Of course I had to find the name (using the Internet) and it is the only name possible: beautyberry.
The branches are also very decorative in winter when only the berries are left, the birds don't like their taste very much so they stay on very long.
For this autumnal scene I had to paint some leaves, their colours are also very beautiful in this time of the year, the shades of yellow and brown contrasting with the violets of the berries. I have made a composition using several reference pictures of the berries and the leaves, choosing a few beautiful groups of branches, leaves and berries and drawing them together until I was happy with my sketch.
The background is not very complicated, only a yellow and a brown shade because I wanted the berries to be visible. The shade of violet I used here is not very dark, so the background had to be light where the berries were to be painted.
The details about paper, paint, size and contact information can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com
Last autumn we walked by a large bush of blackthorn, the branches almost falling down over the slope of the hill where our path was dug out. For several meters there were branches, berries and leaves and I could not really decide which view was the best, so I made a lot of reference pictures.
These past months I think about composition before I even start to make the sketch I will use for my reference to paint from and I compared the pictures I made to pick the branch that attracted me most. This one was hanging down in a nice curve and I could use the background to suggest the other branches and leaves that were in the vicinity of my chosen branch.
The grey background was inspired by the rocky slope of the hill where this scene can be found (near Reifferscheid, in Germany).
I have studied a step-by-step guide for a botanical painting of a blackthorn and looked at the colours used for reference. This was not very elaborate for a step-by-step guide, but I only needed to know a few things.
The blue of the berries was my biggest concern, but now I knew to start with Cobalt Blue, a colour I do not often choose. The berries were given their colour, shadows were suggested and I left it to dry to get an overall look of the painting.
I decided that a second layer of colour would be too much, I also wanted to paint the atmosphere of an autumnal walk.
The details about paper, paint, size and availability of this painting can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com
For this Viburnum painting I have used a sketch I made and painted from a year ago, but this time I added the lessons I learned last summer.
The colour scheme is yellow and brown and I have added a 'square of light' by leaving this part open when I applied the second, darker layer of my background.
This time the tape did not completely stop the paint from flowing into the square I wanted to create, but the lines are only slightly blurred and I think I like this even more than the sharp, straight lines that I created the first time I tried this technique.
Still I think there is a lot more to learn and practise - and I will enjoy every minute of it!
The leaves and berries were painted in end-of-autumn colours, when even the shades of red have faded from the leaves. The berries stay on the branches for a long time as they are slightly poisonous and the birds don't like them.
The composition was drawn on the paper before the dark background colours were added and I changed and adapted it while the painting was taking shape.
The details about the used materials ,the size of the painting and the availability can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com
The composition sketch I made for my last watercolour painting was used again in a mixed media experiment.
For this work I have used a study-quality watercolour paper that I chose for its texture. I have used three colours to paint a watercolour underpainting, finding that this paper would make me move around the paint with each new brushstroke, leaving white paper if I was not careful. That is why I decided to leave the diagonally striped pattern as it was at that moment and start my pencil work.
Now I have created a background that is exiting and new to me.
This time I did not draw the whole composition at once, I started with a few leaves, gave them colour and added more leaves. Some leaves turned out a bit bigger than the original sketch but I did not want to use my eraser too much, the background painting might get damaged.
That is why I have not all the leaves of my original composition in this drawing, but I have balanced the composition as I continued.
The (rough) texture of watercolour paper always is a part of the result and when that happens to a pencil drawing I am really happy with the results. This paper has a texture that is even more distinct than my usual paper and I wanted to see what would happen.
Because the background also contains a brown colour, it was hard to get any contrast with my pencils and I had to use all my supplies for this result. The pencils do blend on the paper of course and I have mixed colours until I had the shades I wanted, using both Watercolour Pencils and Graphitint Pencils. Because of these last pencils I had to wait after I had used fixative to get the final result - the Graphitint Pencil work changes colour when it is wet.
I have learned a lot again this day and I will certainly make pencil drawings on watercolour underpaintings again, I like the result of this experiment and I feel encouraged to continue in this technique.
The details about the paper, paint and pencils I have used can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com
