Waiting for the Rain - Summer 2012

Waiting for the Rain - Summer 2012
Mixed Media on Paper
22.5cm x 25.5cm (9" x 10")


It’s been a wet summer. Elaine and I saw these cows one afternoon in July by the side of the river Trent. It wasn’t raining, but the air was damp and a downpour was imminent. The cow at the front seemed resigned to getting soaked.

I tried a couple of experiments with this picture. The first was the background hedge. This uses the materials I experimented with in The Wild Wood. It is a mixture of watercolour, acrylic ink and granulation medium. The effect of the granulation medium is more obvious than in the Wild Wood pictures. I’m beginning to get the hang of what it does and how to use it.

The second experiment was to try to create the appearance of drizzle by glazing the picture with a thin wash of greyish gouache. It hasn’t turned out as I imagined, but it has done a good job of unifying the picture. Before I added the wash, a couple of the cows looked a bit stuck on. The wash has helped to integrate them into their surroundings.

The cows provided an interesting challenge in modelling to make them appear rounded, three dimensional and solid. This would have been a lot more daunting if I hadn't been studying The Natural Way to Draw.