In the chestnut tree in my front garden the leaves and a lot of flower buds are already growing. The leaves are still a bit curled and have that nice light green colour of springtime.
Early this morning I made some reference pictures for this watercolour painting.
In fact, this is the kind of painting I wanted to do two years ago, but I had not yet been instructed about how to do this. Last summer, during my painting vacation our teacher gave me lots of help, encouragement and instructions so now I am much more confident about painting like this.
For this watercolour I started with a yellow and green background and dried that completely. Using a light green watercolour pencil I drew some chestnut leaves on my paper, using the pictures I made this morning as my reference. I did not aim to make a reproduction of reality, I just wanted the illusion of a branch with a lot of fresh leaves.
The leaves were painted using the same yellow and blue (mixed to several shades of green) and a brown that is present in the veins of the leaves.
The details of the paper and paints I have used, the size and availability can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com
The April challenge of our regional amateur art association is 'Alienation' and that is of course because of the strange times we are having at the moment. We have to practice 'social distancing', we have to stay at home or close to home as much as possible, grocery shopping is done alone and we work from home.
All meetings, (art) festivals and other gatherings are cancelled so we can only go 'out' in our nature, which is discouraged. This is happening all over the world now but I write it down for future readers, to remind them about the circumstances at the time I made this painting.
A few weeks ago, just one day before all things closed down in The Netherlands (because of the corona virus) we went for a walk on the beach. We did chose a beach that is not so very popular, so we had a nice walk without too many other people coming too close. We already had to practice 'social distancing' at that time.
We made some nice pictures of the waves walked for more than an hour and went home again.
I decided to use one of the pictures that were made at the beach for the 'Alienation' challenge.
I have tried to omit the horizon in order to get the alienation that is asked for in this challenge. There are several reasons for that and I will try to explain them all.
In our rather flat landscape there always is a horizon. In fact, there is another online challenge at the moment which uses that ever present horizon as its theme.
When we are looking at a landscape our eyes always try to find the horizon and a photograph is 'not good' when the horizontal line is not found.
And I remember reading that the paintings J.M.W. Turner made about ships in stormy weather were thought to be alienating because the horizon was nowhere to be found in these scenes.
So I have made a seascape with a bit of beach, some waves, the sea and clouds but I have not marked the horizon. I hope this will do for the challenge.
Painting these waves was a bit of a challenge for me, mostly because I have not done this very often. I know I need to practice more and I really will do so somewhere in the future.
The details about the paper and paints used, the size and availability can all be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com
Last weekend we were walking in our neighbourhood when I saw almost hidden between some bushes some small, delicate flowers of a yellowish green and I made some reference pictures.
Back at home I could only find that they are one of the Euphorbia species and probably endangered.
These little flowers with their almost discrete colouring seemed a good subject for a drawing so I sharpened my pencils and started - on a small piece of paper.
The little cup shaped flowers that are just above some leaves in exactly the same colours can only stand out by drawing the shadows, so I did set myself a challenge.
At some phase in the drawing process the paper does not accept much more layers and I decided to stop before that moment. Being a watercolourist I like the white of the paper to be a part of the result and now I am happy with the result and confident that I did not overwork my drawing.
The details about paper and pencils used, size and availability can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com
Some weeks ago we were walking in our beautiful nature and I saw these catkins almost hanging over the path. Of course some reference pictures were made and I started thinking about the painting I wanted to make.
For this painting I have used some Masking Fluid to preserve the white colour of the catkins and again I needed the help of my husband to open the bottle. The bottle cap is not only child proof....
The trees and bushes in the background are only suggested with spots and stripes of brown applied wet in wet - and I let gravity do a lot of work again. There is not much green in the trees and bushes when catkins can be seen, so the background is mostly brown, with some small patches of green.
After all that had dried I remover the masking fluid and painted the branches with the buds and the catkins.
Writing this goes faster than the painting process, to make a branch seem round is a technique that takes a little time.
I am really happy with the result of the thinking and planning that was needed before I could start painting.
The details about paper and paint used, size, availability and contact information can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com
Usually we take our walks close to home, we have a small but nice park area with tall trees and bushes that is not very crowded, even on sunny days.
Spring has come and all those trees and bushes are full with budding leaves and blossoms, some are already in bloom. I have made some reference pictures of the white blossoms of one of these bushes to make a watercolour painting.
White flowers are not easy to paint, most painters use the white of the paper for the flowers and give them a very dark background. Then some shadows are added to the flowers and the results usually are beautiful.
Of course I do not want to do the same, I want something different, I want to paint flowers in my own style.
Besides, my cotton-based Arches paper is not optically white so I would never have really white flowers. There is optically white paper that I sometimes use, but that is cellulose based and not suitable for the technique I use for my flower paintings.
For this watercolour I have made my background first, using the browns that are still the colours of the bushes and trees - as there are not many leaves and blossoms yet. For this background I used lots of water and gravity to make the paint flow and this is today's result.
Using a white watercolour paint I have added the flowers where they would be 'in the right spot' compared to the background. For the flowers I have used two or three layers of paint. The bright green leaves were suggested with only one layer of paint.
The details of paper and paint used, the size and availability can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com
The March challenge of 'Goed Gezien - Goed Bekeken' is 'Step by step' and I did not want to do the obvious thing.
So I started thinking - what goes step by step? The making of a painting of course and how a child learns to walk, but also the elderly people behind their walkers go step by step, not certain of their balance anymore.
I wanted to make a painting with several walkers parked outside a building where people were having fun with.... something I had to find yet.
For the walkers I made some reference pictures and then I had to find a theme.
Dancing lessons are also step by step, why not combining the walkers with the dancing lessons? The idea was born, now I had to make a sketch and ask what dance would be the most unexpected to be taught to people that need walkers. The choice was Salsa or Samba and I chose the latter, maybe because salsa is also a name of a sauce ( in cooking).
I have not tried to make a true masterpiece but the scene speaks for itself - I hope.
The details about the materials I used, availability and contact information can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com
After a lot of rainy days we had one day with sunshine and so we went for a walk in the Natural Reserve "Kalmthoutse Heide", which is on the border of Belgium and The Netherlands, not far from where I live.
Of course there was a lot of water on the paths and in the moors and I made some reference pictures of these (almost) flooded moors.
The first picture I took was just water and grass, no horizon, just for the reflections and what was below the water surface. During the rest of the walk I thought of how I would paint this scene and I made a plan.
On heavy black paper I painted the blue background of the water with the reflections of the sky and I indicated the grasses with some dark colours where the shadows and the wet areas are and light colours where the grasses are growing.
After that dried completely I used watercolour pencils and a Graphitint Pencil for the blades and for extra texture in the wet areas of the groups of the grasses. This was the stage where the painting started to look right and I am really happy with the result.
The scene is almost abstract and I liked to do this painting - for a change. Usually I paint landscape scenes with a horizon, this time I focussed on a detail.
The description of the paints and pencils I have used, the size of the painting and the availability can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com
