Itchy

 

While we were in our vacation home, I did already spend a rainy morning to draw one of the squirrels that came to eat the peanuts we put out on the table that was on the terrace.

Of course we made lots of reference pictures of the two (or more) squirrels eating and sitting on that table and one moment one of them got itchy.  Very itchy.

I made a picture as soon as I saw him scratching his chin (I think this was a 'he' because this was the biggest one), but his foot moved so quickly that the movement was still in the picture. 

Of course I wanted to draw or paint this little scene and I have chosen to draw first. I am not very experienced in painting or drawing animals so this is to get the shape of the squirrel right. For the drawing to be right, it must look like a squirrel and I had to practice that.

For this drawing I used a small size paper and my watercolour pencils and again I have layered the colours until I was happy with the result.

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

Sallandse Heuvelrug

 

At the end of one of our recent walks on the Natural Reserve 'Sallandse Heuvelrug' we saw a path that looked like it was constructed that very same day. Most of the times the paths in our nature have damaged sides, some bits seem to have been 'nibbled off' or bits of soil are on the path. Not to mention the uneven parts where tree roots have lifted the path up a bit.

This path was totally undamaged as far as we could see and that unusual sight was photographed by my husband. Looking at his picture, I decided to use part of it as a reference for a nice autumnal watercolour painting.

The light between the trees in the background was hazy, maybe because there had been rains in the morning and at the moment we walked there we had warm sunshine, so the moist from the morning was evaporating.

I have limited the colour scheme a bit, to match the leaves on the trees with the colours of the forest floor, some nice warm orange-browns and a bit of warm yellow.

The bench was there in the picture and I decided to paint it as well, the composition could do with some horizontal lines. Now the painting is finished I think the bench in that spot adds a touch of mystery. Who or what will come out of the misty forest to look at the resting wanderer?

The information about the paper and paints I have used, the size of this painting and its availability can all be found in the link at the 'Galerie' page of my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

The school mushroom

 

The name of this charcoal drawing comes from the place where my husband made the reference picture: the schoolyard of the primary school where he is a teacher.

The schoolyard has some areas with wood chips and in this time of the year there are lots of mushrooms growing there. Most of them are trampled by the playing children, but this one had a spot where it could grow a bit bigger. My husband spotted it and made a picture.

Of course I wanted to make a painting or drawing using that reference picture. As the mushroom is grey, I decided to make a charcoal drawing.

The wood chips and bamboo grass are only suggested, as the mushroom is my subject.

For this drawing I have chosen a small piece of paper, approximately size A4.

The information about the materials I have used, the (framed) size of my drawing and its availability can all be found in the link at the 'Galerie' page of my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

Orange Mushrooms

 

During our short vacation very close to our Natural reserve 'Sallandse Heuvelrug' we did go for a signposted walk every day and made lots of pictures - as I mentioned in earlier posts. Of course I made reference pictures of the mushrooms, there were some large groups of them on the forest ground and their colours were great.

These were bright orange against a brown forest floor filled with leaves, branches and dried pine needles so they did stand out very nicely.

For my watercolour painting I have rearranged the mushrooms a bit to make a good composition. The forest ground is a bit different as well - for the same reason.

I started my painting with a background in orange shades and added salt for structure. 

When all was dry, I started placing the mushrooms, using my reference picture for the shapes. The forest floor was only suggested, it would take too much attention if I painted all those little details.

Later I decided to add the same greyish blue in the background that is also used in the colours of the foreground.

Of course I could have added much more of the mushrooms, but this was a relatively small but bright coloured group (I have seen much larger groups during our walks) so I have made my composition with those that were in my reference picture.

The information about the paper and paints I have used for this watercolour painting, its size and availability can all be found in the link at the 'Galerie' page of my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

Yellow mushrooms

 

This November the challenge of 'Goed Gezien-Goed Bekeken' is 'Colour in Nature' and with autumn at its end we surely have had more than enough colour in nature to inspire us. 

But when do you really get inspired by colours in nature? When they stand out against a contrasting background of course, so I chose to make a painting after some pictures my husband made during our last walk on the Sallandse Heuvelrug a few weeks ago.

On some chunks of grey bark that were stacked close to the path grew some very orange-yellow mushrooms and they did stand out beautifully. The hoods were cracked, so a light yellow colour was shining through at some places and even before the challenge was published I knew I wanted to paint these mushrooms.

For my watercolour I chose to leave out all the distracting details of the tree bark and lay emphasis on the mushrooms as they were my subject.

The structure of the bark is still suggested by changes in colour and some lines where the shadows were and depth is created by adding some warm colours to the pieces of bark in the foreground. This was a bit of a challenge, because the whole scene has not more depth than thirty or forty centimetres. 

Once again I have tried to find the name of the mushrooms and failed.

The information about the paper and paints I have used, the size and availability of this painting can all be found in the link at the 'Galerie' page of my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com

Sallandse Heuvelrug - Coniferous trees in backlight

 

  

This time of the year, the sun is not as high in the sky as it is in summer, so it is possible to make a picture of a tree in backlight early in the afternoon. My husband Peter was inspired by the scene and made several pictures - that inspired me to paint. Of course my watercolour painting is not meant to be an exact copy of the beautiful pictures my husband made.

The reference pictures were made during one of our walks in the Natural reserve 'Sallandse Heuvelrug' in the eastern part of our country.

The picture I made from my watercolour painting is not perfect, in this season it is really  hard to get the colours right. The picture does give a good impression though and maybe the one I uploaded to my Flickr page is a bit better. 

For this painting I chose a large size paper so I had all the space I needed for a nice clouded sky, a landscape with moorland, woodland in the background and the trees of course.

The picture I used for reference had the sun exactly behind the trees, so there was as good as nothing of the needles and branches 'lost' in the light. The moorland is very dark in the picture because of it being in backlight, I wanted to change that to how the landscape looks when you see it with your own eyes.

I did use brighter colours for the sky and landscape than the reference picture had, the trees are painted in very dark colours, as close to black as I could mix them.

The result of my efforts is what I hoped for, a watercolour that suggests the atmosphere of a sunny autumn day in a beautiful landscape.

The information about the paper and paints I have used, the size of this work and its availability can all be found in the link at the 'Galerie' page of my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

Holterberg (Netherlands) - a charcoal drawing

 

When we were making walks the walks during our short stay on the 'Sallandse Heuvelrug' - one of our beautiful Natural Reserves - we did not only make pictures of the mushrooms we found, there were also some landscape pictures, because the landscape really is gorgeous.

One of the walks passed by the Holterberg, not really a mountain, but a hill, like the other hills of this area it was left behind in the landscape after the last Ice Age. In this area the moorland is reconstructed, so trees have been felled, the soil that had become too nutrient-rich is scraped off in order to give the heather plants a chance to grow and prosper again.

The reconstruction was not recent at this particular spot, so there are some trees left and a lot of heather is growing already, but in autumn, after the flowers have gone, these plants are very brown. Next spring there will be fresh green leaves and in the end of summer beautiful purple flowers, but now the plants are not so exciting. 

The structure of the landscape, with hillsides, a road and the trees still did inspire me, so I took a reference picture and the next day I made this drawing.  I was really happy to find out that the people who made the walk with me (my husband, my daughter and her friend) recognised the spot when they saw the drawing.

The information about the materials I have used, the size and availability of this charcoal drawing can be found in the link at the 'Galerie' page of my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com