Small watercolor studies

I grew up in a small town in the south of the Netherlands which finds itself in the midst of a marl landscape. Sometimes the marl appears above the ground, yellowish in color, rocky and steep, but also with deep quarries caused by excavating the marl blocks which were, and still are, used for building. Most of the marble is hidden underground. There you’ll find mysterious caves and countless kilometers long passages in which you can easlily get lost. With the risque of not being find ever again. Visits are possible, but only in groups with a guided tour.

As kids we were strictly forbidden by our parents to come near the entries that lead into the caves. Some passages had easy acces because of the broken fence. And although it might seem like a challlenging adventure, we never dared to go inside as we knew it was irresponsible and extremely dangerous. 

Marl is used for several purposes, it was already used as building material in Roman times. There’s a lot to tell about but I’ll spare you historical details. It is this landscape from my youth that inspired me to draw and paint a serie of landscape studies. Although marl is yellowish the color palette is of course, as always, influenced by my own perception of color. 

I did these on watercolor paper with watercolors, gouache, colored pencils and oil pastels.