Painting in the castle garden

We spent an afternoon painting in the garden of our local Castle,

I am not so much a landscape painter but I like challenging myself.

So I brought only four colours of paint,

which was a real challenge indeed :).

I chose an interesting angle with a view on the garden.

I used a small frame to consider the angle and composition:

The only unfortunate thing were the stinging flies... I wrapped my legs in a sweater, 

but they got me.

It is a small castle with a beautiful garden:

Trial and error

Today I worked on some ideas for Christmas,

I like the process of ideas and design.

I just try some different techniques and see what works.

There is trial and error, sometimes it does not work,

and sometimes it is better than I expected :).

So here is how I started, mirroring words on the backside of painted paper:

And here is the result, first try, made a mistake with the Y, so drew it again.

I have added some details and am still working on the design, but almost finished..

So truly my idea, my mistakes and truly handcut, drawn and handmade!

I love this process.

Weeks without rain

We have a very dry summer,

the landscape slowly turns yellow...

Soft colours...

A couple of years ago I made these landscape paintings,

which remind me of the lakes and reeds and cloudy skies:

Pink!

Lots of pinks in our vegetable garden!

The sun makes them splash out!

Visit to the factory Royal Talens

To learn more about the paint and materials I use, I visited the factory of the Dutch brand Royal Talens.

They were established in 1899, and started to produce paint, pastels and other drawing materials.

Very inspiring to hear about the history, and interesting to see the whole process in the factory 

(of which no pictures were taken).

Some vintage items in a collection:

The factory and the truck for distribution:

Lots of nice products to try new techniques:

My own vintage watercolour box, I am still using it!

In the factory you could see the hard work put into making the right colours of paint with pigments,

and also the quality control of the products.

I am happy to be using this Dutch brand!