Inside the Oceanium

 

Not every time we visit Diergaarde Blijdorp we go to the Oceanium, the large aquarium with species from everywhere in the world visible in a very good imitation of their natural habitat.

Last December we did go in to see all the changes that were made over the past few years and I asked my husband to make some reference pictures for me. I really like the little Cownose rays (Rhinoptera bonasus) but it's really hard to make a picture as they are constantly on the move. My husband succeeded to make several nice pictures and in one of them the other fish that live together with the rays were visible very well too. These reference pictures waited for me to get the courage/inspiration needed to paint from them.

For this watercolour painting I started with a dark blue background on cellulose paper and added the Cownose ray and the fish later. I have used white watercolour paint - which is not completely opaque - for the ray and the fish. Where it was needed I added several layers of paint to get the shade of white that I wanted. 

For the other colours of the ray and the fish I have made the colour mixtures on the paper, using as little water as possible and a little of the blue of the background is also included in the final mixture. I am happy that I got the colour shades I wanted using this technique.

The fish were almost transparent, that may also be caused by the light conditions in the building, but I thought it best to suggest that transparency by painting (semi-)transparent layers of paint over the dark background and I painted the 'colours' of the scales with my iridescent medium.

The information about the materials I have used, the size of this painting and its availability can all be found in my Tumblr blog.

Maasvlakte - sunset

 

For my husband and me Summer vacation has already started as we don't have to go to work when the children don't go to school. This means we have time to go to the beach to see the sunset when the weather permits. Yesterday evening was one of those moments. The air was warm, not hot, the sky was blue and there was nothing urgent to do the next day so the alarm could be set a bit later than on a workday. From our home it is almost an hour drive to the nearest beach and sunset was to be around 21.43 hrs. 

We went to the beach at the Maasvlakte, not exactly a place to go with children that want to play in the sand, but the sunset is as beautiful from that beach as it is from any other place. After parking the car we walked over the line of dunes and started walking, making pictures while we were on the way. When we reached a beautiful spot we waited for the sunset and made more pictures (no surprise here). As the tide was outgoing, there were lots of patches of water left on the shoreline, catching the sunlight and reflecting the colours of the sunset.

Today I picked one of these pictures to make a watercolour painting. As the sun was still visible in this scene I had to use masking fluid to make sure that this spot stayed as white as possible. I also masked the reflections on the water. Because of the use of the masking fluid, I could not speed up the drying process of the painting with my hairdryer so I had to wait for the colours in the sky were dry and hope they would not mix too much while the paint was still wet.

The foreground was also a bit of a challenge, with the reflected light in the water and the dark patches of sand that were left behind by the retreating water. Both water and sand were coloured by the sunset so I had to give them a light glaze without disturbing the first layers of paint too much.

After all had dried I had to remove the masking fluid and correct the white shapes so they would look like the kind of shapes that can be seen in a landscape.  

All that planning and correcting and adding and again correcting made me a bit too focused on the details so I had to walk away for a few minutes before I could see the painting I made as a whole. In fact I am really happy with the result.  Even though the reference picture has been my inspiration and guideline, the painting is not exactly how the scene looked yesterday. 

The information about the materials I have used, the size of the watercolour painting and its availability can all be found in my Tumblr blog.

Weeping Willow - 3: Sunset colours

 

The third painting in which the weeping willow is my model is an imaginary landscape in sunset colours.

The sky is a warm yellow, there are some clouds and there is a large pond or a lake with a distant shoreline that is reflected in the water. The wet-in-wet technique is perfect for the first layer and after that a more wet-on-dry technique will have to be used to add depth to the shoreline and its reflections without making a total mess of the first layer op paint.

To this point I had planned my painting and I wanted to let the result of these first layers of paint inspire me what to do next. The weeping willow had to be there somehow but I had not decided yet.

Because I had placed the horizon very low there was not enough foreground in the scene to plant a whole tree and have some space around it so I had to be creative here. I placed the painter/viewer under the tree, looking out over the water into the (far) distance. There are only a few branches in sight, painted with a moist brush on dry paper.

The overhanging branches of the willow tree act as a repoussoir in my painting and that is what I needed for my composition. If I had not added these branches the scene could be anywhere, now there is a sense of size and distance that can be related to the size of the branches and leaves of the tree.

The information about the materials I have used, the size, the price and the availability of this watercolour painting can all be found in my Tumblr blog.

Sacred Lotus (Nelumbo nucifera)

 

 

Yesterday we went to Diergaarde Blijdorp for a visit to the animals and of course the flowers, trees and other plants, as this zoo is also a botanical garden. We are not often there in summer, but there had been a lockdown so we could not visit earlier in the year.

Of course we enjoyed the animals but we also needed a drink so we sat down on a terrace in the shade of a large parasol with a cup of tea. 

In a corner of the terrace were some pots with  Sacred Lotus (according to the information sign), mostly leaves and one large flower bud. Even though it was at a small distance, the flower bud and the leaves were clearly visible and I sketched them while waiting for the tea to turn cold enough to drink it.

Today I wanted to paint from my sketch, while the colours were still fresh in my memory and I decided to make a 'white on black' painting, using white gouache mixed with watercolour paints to paint the Lotus plant.

The flower bud was bright green and light yellow, so that was easy to paint, layering gouache that was lightly tinted with watercolour paint. The leaves are a dark green, with shadows  and these were not as easy. After one layer of tinted gouache I had to use only dark watercolour paint and that does not build up very well on black cardboard. In the end I used my watercolour pencils on the dried paint to suggest the cup - like shape of the leaves. These pencil marks are dry and do not mix with previous layers so that worked as I hoped it would.

The information about the materials I have used, the size of this work, its price and availability can all be found in my Tumblr blog.

The Red lantern

 

The July challenge of 'Goed Gezien - Goed Bekeken' had the Red Lantern for its theme. The red lantern is always on the vehicle at the end of a convoy - or the last cyclist in the race gets the red lantern to mark his unfavourable position.

The sports - related explanation of the theme did not inspire me, so I went through the archives and found a picture taken almost nine years ago in a narrow street in France. The lantern was high above us and because of the narrow street the picture had to be made at an unusual angle (for us). There was a very thick fog coming in from the sea which made the reference picture very special.

For my contribution to the challenge I have only looked at the perspective, made some changes to the amount of windows, added some lanterns and only suggested the trees and the fog in the background. 

Usually I try to change my style or technique when I paint or draw for a challenge and that is what I have done again this time. Well, maybe I have done this so often that this has become a 'second style' that is already customary for me.

The initial pencil drawing was coloured in with watercolour and I made sure I used a sketchy style. The paper is not really watercolour paper so I used as little water as possible to distribute the paint. The lanterns and some other details were drawn in using watercolour markers. I have used a little water to let the lines made by these markers flow where needed.

The information about the materials I have used, the size of this work and its availability can all be found in my Tumblr blog.

Reflections - a different mood

 

In my previous post I have introduced this landscape on the shore of the 'Veerse Meer' with the line of poplar trees reflected in the calm waters of the lake. I also wrote that I would paint this scene again, changing the composition to the one that is in the reference picture. 

This means that I have placed the horizon in the middle of the composition, which is a bit against the rules, and I have changed the colour scheme.

For this painting I have given the poplar trees the green colour they have later in spring. My first painting shows the red-brown shade of the fresh leaves before they turn green a few weeks later. Instead of the grey-blue shade of the clouds and their reflections in the water that I used in my first painting I have used Indigo which is a dark blue shade for this one. 

Both changes create a different mood to the painting and that is what I wanted to achieve.

The information about the materials I have used, the size of this watercolour painting, its price and availability can all be found in my Tumblr blog.

Reflections

 

Last May we visited the 'Veerse Meer' and made a nice walk through a woodland area with mostly poplars on the shore of the lake. We (my husband and me) both made lots of pictures as the dark clouds that were reflected in the water of the lake inspired us both. 

At some point we could access a long landing stage, pointing out into the lake. From the end of that landing stage my husband - who had the camera and could zoom in or out at will - made pictures of the tree line that was reflected in the water. As there was almost no wind, the reflection was as good as perfect. This picture is perfect to be used for a painting, I just had to find the time.

For my composition I have changed the place of the horizon, as the picture has the horizon halfway. That composition will be painted also, but I wanted to start with this one. I used the picture for a sketch and worked after that to make my painting, trying to remember the right colours as good as possible.

The reflected clouds are much darker than the ones in the sky, so I could change the mood of the painting with the modification I made in the composition. Poplar trees have red-brown spring colours so I painted the trees mostly red-brown, which gives a nice contrast with the blue-grey shades of the clouds and their reflections in the water. 

Looking back at the picture the trees were already mostly green with parts of the red-brown shades of fresh leaves, so my memory played me some tricks. The brown-red colours were what I noticed most during the walk, so that shade seemed to be the right one while working from a black and white line sketch. Another lesson learned! The painting result only benefits from this because a blue and green painting would not have the mood I wanted to paint.

The information about the materials I have used, the size, price and availability of this painting can all be found in my Tumblr blog.