Moving house - for a challenge

 

The May challenge of 'Goed Gezien - Goed Bekeken' is about moving house. May traditionally was the month to move house (I did not know that and I think I rarely did move house in May) so that's why we have this theme.

That theme is a bit out of my comfort zone, so first I thought of boxes - but within days after the challenge was announced paintings and drawings with boxes were submitted, so I had to think of something else.

This is a bit 'the story of my life' as I used a print of the map of The Netherlands to point the places where I lived and made small drawings of what happened there. Of course I did not draw everything, things should still be visible.

1 is Venlo, I was born there, but did not live there very long. My father got a job far away so we moved to Zwijndrecht, where we lived in three different homes (2, 3 and 4). I grew up there, played and went to school. 5 is Spijkenisse, another change because of my father's work. I got my diplomas for the secondary school and my professional training there. 6 is Hilversum, 7 and 8 are Amsterdam. There I moved for my own job. I married my husband and the children were born in home no. 8 as well and after that in got too small we moved to our first bought home (the others were rental) in Zaandam, no. 9. Finally, 10 is Papendrecht where we moved for my husband's job and we still live here. I discovered my passion for watercolour painting and drawing here.

That was not really much about my submission for the challenge, but a bit of information about me. Of course there is much more to tell 'about me' but I am a painter, not a novelist. So for this time you will have to do with what I wrote about moving house in my life.

Kalmthoutse Heide - moorland

 

A few months ago we (my husband and me) went for a walk on the Kalmthoutse Heide, a Natural Reserve we like to visit as often as possible. This time I made reference pictures of the small peat bog opposite the 'Putse Moer', a large moorland pool and very easy to find on the maps of the area.

As usual I needed some time to gather courage for a painting, because this is not an easy subject for me. All those tall grasses - do I have to paint them all or just a few - and which ones need to be in the painting? 

Also as usual I just had to start painting and these questions answered themselves and I just have to do what looks right when most of the paint is on the paper. The tall grasses I added in the foreground and in the middle ground are not really painted, I used water soluble pencils.

Before all that I also decided on the cropping of the reference picture, what to do with the horizon (the trees on the horizon are 'replanted' for the painting) and my point of interest. These choices were not the ones that I need to gather courage for, so I made them after I chose the reference picture I wanted to use for this work.

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

Delft - Market place

 

Due to the Vermeer exhibition in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam there is another Vermeer-themed exhibition in Delft. This one is very interesting as it gives the background information about Delft in Vermeer's time. 

After we had visited the museum, we walked through Delft and had a drink (tea and coffee) on the Market place with a view on the 'Nieuwe Kerk', another church (Maria van Jesse kerk) and some of the restaurants that are there. And trees!

The trees were just getting their foliage, so the colours were between a reddish brown, yellow and green and I really like the time of the year when trees are not only green. Making reference pictures was done quickly (the tea was still hot) but then...

Painting a lot of architecture makes me unhappy, I never can get all those straight lines as they ought to be in a painting - which is not as straight as they are in the reference picture.

So I made a pencil drawing of the buildings, added sky, foreground and trees with watercolour and used two line markers to re-draw the buildings, going over the pencil lines in many places and adding some shadows where the painting needed it. Using line markers on watercolour paper does not result in very straight lines, so this is what I wanted to do.

The result is even better than I hoped for, so I hope that now I have found 'my way' of dealing with architecture in a watercolour painting.

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

If you are interested in my work, please contact me.

Plane tree, winter

 

Not far from my home - I can see it from the garden - is a large plane tree and I wanted to paint or draw it for a long time. Last winter I made some reference pictures of the tree and now I have found the time to draw it.

Of course it also took so long because I wanted to use the Naturel PaintOn paper as my background and I only got that paper recently. After I had the paper I also needed time to think about 'how do I want to draw the tree' and time to draw it. 

The thinking about 'how' resulted in three colours of Conté Crayons that do not at all resemble the true colours of the tree, but are a good combination of values; a dark, a middle and a light value with the colour of the paper between the middle and the light values.

The reference pictures were made in winter, so the tree is still bare, with only showing the seed balls that are still on the branches. By now most of them have fallen off. The many different colours of the bark are only suggested as I do not want to show all of the details. The same applies to the smallest branches, seen in back light.

This drawing is what I hoped it would be and I think I have now found the best way to draw a living tree with my Conté crayons.

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

If you are interested in my work, please contact me.

Lilies - pencil drawing

 

The April challenge of 'Goed Gezien - Goed Bekeken' is 'dressed' -  about clothing to impress or for functionality or....

As I do not paint people, I had to think of something else and as my first idea was already used, I turned to plan B. My inspiration/clue comes from the Bible: 

"Look at the lilies, look how they grow in the field. They neither work nor weave. I tell you, even Solomon in all his splendour was not dressed like one of them." (Matthew 6:28-29)

Of course I had to look for these words, I do know they are in the Bible, but I do not know exactly where to find them.

The lilies were drawn from several reference pictures and I used my imagination for the colour scheme, hoping to get a nice composition. My (water soluble) pencils were used to make nice blended colours and the background was added mostly because of the very pale lily below.

Making this drawing was fun, using all the pencils I wanted to - trying out some colours I had not used before (the box of pencils was a birthday gift last year) and I really hope everyone understands why I made this drawing for this challenge.

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

Tulips - watersoluble graphite drawing

 

After my birthday (about a month ago) I have got some new art materials. New paper and new 'toys'. The Portuguese water soluble graphite in the shape of a tailor's chalk works - like a tailor's chalk, and I already am used to working with those. Because it is water soluble it's also easy to wash off my hands - just water and soap, no scrubbing needed.

Some of the tulips from my own garden were used as my references and I used the 'chalks' first dry on dry paper, later I added some water and was surprised by the bright colours that appeared. The surprise was positive and I really am happy that I have these 'chalks'.

This surface can be used again for new layers of the graphite as easily as it was to draw the first layer. I have been building the layers using the dry 'chalk' and adding water where I wanted it until I was happy with the results. 

The composition is a bit intuitive, I started with one flower and added more flowers, buds, stems and in the end leaves to make a nice looking drawing. The green of the stems and leaves is added using a Graphitint pencil, I have got only two 'chalks' to start with, but I am planning to get some more. As both the pencils and the chalks are water soluble graphite, I have used both for this drawing. Both products have a limited colour chart, so I used them to complement each other.

The information about the materials I have used, the size of this drawing and its availability can all be found in my Tumblr blog. If you are interested in my work, please contact me.

Peonies - springtime in my garden

 

In my garden, very close to our house is a group of peonies. I have made drawings of the flower buds and the leaves in autumn, but I never used them for a springtime painting. When they come above the ground, the stems and first leaves are red, with a hint of the green that will emerge later, after they had a lot of sunshine. Over the years the patch of peonies has expanded so now we have a lot of red in the garden. They do not all come at the same time, so there are beginning ones, stems with the beginning of leaves and stems with some leaves folded out.

For this painting I made some reference pictures and did not paint exactly what was in the pictures. I decided to make my own composition using the pictures to look at the actual shapes of the peonies.

The background is made using browns and greens and a lot of water, with some help from gravity to let the colours flow. After that had dried I started painting the peonies, placing them on the paper without a preliminary drawing. While I was doing this, I added smaller and larger stems to make a nice looking composition, in harmony with the background.

Creating the colour that is somewhat between red and a dark green was a challenge, but using multiple layers of paint I have achieved the best result possible. After the peonies were completed and dry I added the suggestion of the ground, the garden they are in.

Making a good picture of the finished painting was not as easy as I thought, looking at it on the laptop the light green seemed to fade away, so I adjusted the picture a bit.

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