Sunset

 

A few months ago my daughter Riska sent me a picture of a sunset (I think it is a sunset and I think it is in The Netherlands) to enjoy and maybe for inspiration. Of course I wanted to paint it, but having been busy with other things it has been postponed until now.

As this is a cityscape it was a bit of a challenge. Usually I just like to suggest the architecture by the outlines and the main colours of the buildings. The horizon was mostly in backlight so only I had to suggest on that part, but the buildings on the right had some of the sunlight, there I had to do more details - but not too many as the buildings are not my subject.

The yellow shades of the sunlight are painted with some nice warm colours - not too warm because it is Autumn and the reflection in the water was really nice to work on.

Even though there were some challenges in this painting, the result is what I hoped for.

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

December doodle

 This time the challenge of 'Goed Gezien - Goed Bekeken' was to make a December doodle. So we could just doodle away in a December or Christmas mood or make a zen-tangle work, both things I do not do very often.

Of course I had to do this my way so I made a drawing of two Christmas Balls first and after that had dried (I used water soluble graphite) I added the strings.

Now it was time to doodle or zen-tangle. I started in the balls, using the shapes of the zen-tangle to create the shadows and expanding these tangle shapes into the figures below the balls. Of course I did not follow the 'rules' of zen-tangle, I used two colours of line markers and added some pencil for extra colour.

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

Along the railroad (Mattemburgh, Netherlands)

 

A few months ago, at the end of Summer, we (my husband and me) made a walk starting at 'Landgoed Mattemburgh' which took us through the surrounding landscape with fields, mudflats, the view of Bergen op Zoom (a town in The Netherlands) and a railroad.

The walk was nice with all those differences and I made several reference pictures for later use. This one is along the railroad, very close to a point where we had to cross it again - very safe crossings of course - looking back to where we came from.

I thought this scene could be ideal to try the panorama-shaped paper I bought  last summer so I selected a nice part of the reference picture and started painting. In fact I did not find much difficulties painting this one, I only had to get used to the size of the paper.

The painting is what I hoped it would be and I really am looking forward to other paintings on this paper. The size of the paper does set some limits to the composition, but I really like these little challenges because they make me grow as a painter.

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

If you are interested in my original artworks, please contact me.

The triangle... for a challenge

 

The November challenge of 'Goed Gezien - Goed Bekeken' is about a triangle. A local artist (Ad Dekkers) found the triangle a shape he could not interact with and we are challenged or invited to try our best to do so.

Being a landscape painter I wanted to do something with that. The scene is imaginary and the triangles - I just painted around them.

For this painting I started wet - in - wet using a neutral background colour that could also help darkening the shadow parts. Using models I drew on the triangles and started painting in colour, but around the shapes. So the first background colour is still visible in the triangle shapes, a bit blurry as I painted wet - in - wet.

My first idea was to make it rain triangles, but then I would have to paint around many little shapes and the second layer still is partially wet - in - wet to make the sky look as a sky should be.

Only after the second layer dried I started painting on the dry paper, shaping the tree, the little building and some parts of the bushes and foreground.

This experiment was a nice experience and maybe I will use this idea again.

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

Autumn in the 'Meinweg' 2 (The Netherlands)

 

During our walks in National Parc the Meinweg we saw beautiful autumn colours, lots of trees and bushes and traces of wild boars looking for food on the sides of the paths. 

With this painting I have tried to paint all of that without showing all the details. So the foliage is suggested with colour only, the tree trunks are painted and blurred in parts before the paint dried to suggest they stand behind bushes and in the foreground there are some very dark shapes beside the path to suggest the activity of the boars.

This painting is all about atmosphere and I am happy with the results.

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.

Autumn in the 'Meinweg' (The Netherlands)

 

Last week we had 'autumn vacation', a week free from work and we usually go away for a  short vacation. This time it was a very short vacation due to work in our home (it is beautiful now).

We went to make a walk in National Parc the Meinweg as we have not been there before. The walk was a long one, so we divided it in two parts, one day the shorter part, the next day the long one. The area is beautiful and even though we were warned about the presence of wild boars, we could only find where they had been. We did see and hear more birds than mammals as we were late in the day - around noon or later - and it was suddenly cold weather.

During the walks we made several pictures, some for the album, some only as reference for my paintings.

At one point, we passed by a forest edge behind a meadow and we were looking at it from below some large trees. The Autumn colours in the forest edge were spectacular so I made several pictures for reference.

For this painting I decided on a portrait orientation, just to make a different kins of painting than I have done several times before. This is a way of challenging myself and not painting on routine only.

The painting is what I hoped for, a nice Autumn mood showing the beautiful nature of The Netherlands.

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. If you are interested in my original artwork, please contact me.

Snow fantasy

 

The special offers for discounts when ordering cards are coming in, so I had to make my Christmas card!

This year it will be a landscape and the reference is a sketch I made many years ago and changed to a winter scene, adding some hills and forgetting the path while painting.

The colour scheme is simple, only dark, moody colours for a nice winter's night in the hills - all very imaginary but really fun to paint.

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