Last weekend we went for a walk again, this time in a recreation area with some woodland called 'Het Lingebos'. Of course we did walk a signposted walk in the woodland area and we enjoyed it very much. We want to return to that area in other seasons as well.
The area is very green in this time of the year, especially after the rains we had recently.
As the area is very watery - the river Linge is flowing there - I have made reference pictures of waterways, ponds etcetera. These are for later use.
There were some thistles and I really like these plants for their colours. The violet of the flowers is also present in the shades of green that can be found in the stems and leaves.
This thistle had a visitor who was not at all disturbed by my presence.
Of course I could have painted only the flower, but I wanted to set myself a challenge and painted the bumble bee as well. The bumble bees seem to be everywhere now, but maybe they just are very happy in our garden. There is a nest close to our house as well. That is a good sign, as insects have been declining in numbers over the past decades.
The information about the paper and paints I have used and about the size and availability of the painting can be found in the link at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com
My love for waterlilies started with a fairy tale and when there was a possibility for a very small pond in our garden, I wanted a (mini) waterlily. After almost twenty years there were more waterlily roots in our pond than water, so we took it out, refreshed the water and planted a new waterlily, a light yellow one.
The flowers are delicate and of course I wanted to paint them.
It was hard to get the picture right, so tilting the screen a bit may help seeing all the colours. These shades of yellow are easier to paint than to capture in a good picture.
On a very light and cool yellow and green background I painted the lily flower, some leaves and shadows and I suggested the vertical shapes of the leaves of the irises that grow behind our little pond.
The result is as delicate as I wanted it to be, so I am happy with this painting.
The information about the paper and paint I have used, the size and availability can be found in the link at my website. Contact information is also at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com
This month the challenge of our regional amateur art association ("Goed Gezien - Goed Bekeken") is combined with the challenge of "Ik Toon - Molenlanden".
We have to make a new work and the theme is 'Bridge' or 'Bridging'.
In our part of The Netherlands there is a lot of water, so we have a lot of bridges but I did not want to paint one of the bridges that is familiar to everyone.
Years ago we were in Scotland for a week and we visited the beautiful nature of The Trossachs. This scene was one of the many where we all made pictures.
In these days our son and daughter did spend the vacations with us, so there were three or four cameras working hard and now I do not remember who made which picture.
For the watercolour I have used a sketch I had made long ago using one of the pictures for my reference and did not bother to look for the original picture in the album.
For the watercolour I decided to use a very limited palette, only two colours and the scene is reduced to its essentials: a background, the river, the river banks and the bridge.
The information about the paper and paints I have used, the size and availability can be found in the link at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com
In my garden is a large group of peonies. I have been drawing the leaves in autumn, the closed flower buds in springtime and now I made a mixed media of a flower that was not open yet.
My husband made the picture late in the afternoon and the next day the flower opened.
For this mixed media I have used paper with only a very little bit of texture, made a watercolour underpainting in pink and started drawing the flower bud. In fact I should write flower buds, because there is a closed one behind the one that is dominating the scene. The stem and some leaves were also added using my watercolour pencils.
The dark background was also painted, as I had planned from the beginning.
Because the paper I used is not ideal for many layers of watercolour painting I have added some leaf shapes in the shadows under the flower using my darkest green pencil again.
This was to be an experiment with my materials, but the process did not really have any surprises for me. Of course I am still learning but I already know what to expect from this combination of materials and I can challenge myself more with the subject I am painting or drawing.
The information about the paper, paints and pencils I have used, the size and availability are in the link at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com
Where we live there are lots of plants, bushes and trees that are 'public green' and are maintained by the Public Service. We like that and enjoy our walks, even when we are not in a park area because we pass by these bushes and flowers everywhere we go.
Very often the ones that are in bloom attract my attention and I make some quick pictures for reference.
This time of the year the eglantines are in bloom and the fragrance is great.
But the flowers are nice too so I painted them.
Even when the flowers are close together, there is a difference in colour, they have a lot of shades of pink and I have tried to paint those pinks.
Compared to the flowers there is a lot of foliage, so the background is made to suggest all those leaves - and some other groups of flowers.
Painting these flowers was fun and the result is what I hoped for.
The information about the paper and paints I have used, the size and availability can all be found in the link at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com
During our last walks in our beautiful nature we did pass by some broom bushes in bloom and I made some pictures for reference. Of course the broom has lost its flowers by now and the seed pods have replaced them but fortunately the pictures do last a few weeks longer.
On a yellow background I painted the branches in the foreground first and added a background with some shadows and another little bush further away.
Bushes of the common broom seldom stand all alone in nature so I have suggested some more bush-like shapes around them. These could be blackberries or even very young trees, I leave that to the imagination of the spectator.
For the flowers I have used some of the colours that were chosen for the background. The two greens were mixed with two different shades of yellow and only one blue.
I could have made the flowers stand out more by choosing a very different colour for my background, but that is 'not me' and I am really happy with this result.
The information about the paper and paint I have used, the size and availability are all in the link at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com
During our walks in the woodlands near Rucphen (Netherlands) we did see a lot of young trees, new leaves, blossoms and other signs of spring.
In our Natural reserves there is also a lot of dead wood, tree trunks standing or lying where they died and left there as food for insects, shelter for birds and small animals and in the end to fertilise the soil. Of course the dead trees that are hazardous will be removed and some are removed to give more open spaces in what once was a production woodland.
Near a crossroads there was a tree trunk standing and another one lying on the ground, both were pine trees, and just behind them was a young birch tree.
The contrast between the young tree and the decay of the other two inspired me to make some reference pictures.
For this painting I chose a larger size paper than I have used over the past months, to give the trees some space on the paper.
The background is only suggested, as is the foreground. That bit of forest floor near the crossroads did not have any bushes or other plants. There are a lot of possibilities for signposted walks with dogs or horses and some paths for recreational bike rides so the sides of the paths are relatively 'clean'.
The information about the paper and paints I have used, the size and availability are to be found in the link at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com
