Rain Clouds

Walking Home
Watercolour on Paper
15cm x 24cm (6" x 9.5")

 Rain Clouds is the second topic in the Skies and Weather chapter of Creating Textures in Pen & Ink with Watercolor by Claudia Nice.

The approach is similar to the one Claudia used for Cumulus Clouds, but with darker colours. Claudia finished her examples with ink work to darken the cloud shadows and indicate rain, but currently, I prefer to stick with watercolour. 

This is the end of a walk in April 2009 - we set out in the morning, had lunch in the Horse Chestnut and are hoping to get home before it gets much darker or starts raining.

Drawing and Painting the Landscape – Copying Others

 

Allotment Shed
Copying Others - Drawing and Painting the Landscape
Ink on Paper
14cm x 18cm (5.5" x 7")

Lesson 28 of Drawing and Painting the Landscape by Philip Tyler is about learning from the mark making of other artists. It is the last lesson in the Mark Making chapter.

Phillip provides a list of artists. He suggests studying their mark making and comparing the marks in their drawings with the marks in their paintings.  He also recommends copying excerpts from their drawings.

Excerpt from Six's Bridge by Rembrandt
Copying Others - Drawing and Painting the Landscape
Ink on Paper
14cm x 14cm (5.5" x 5.5")

Rembrandt is the first artist on the list. I studied as many of his drawings and etchings as I could find, copied an excerpt from one of them and then drew a picture of my own. I didn't try to imitate Rembrandt's marks. I was interested in whether my subconscious would  be influenced by the recent scrutiny of his drawings.  

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I haven’t studied the work of an artist in this way since the Analysis of Reproductions and Composition from Reproductions exercises from The Natural Way to Draw. It is something I enjoy doing and should do more regularly, but there is always something more pressing to do. Maybe I will set a goal to study the drawings of an artist from Philip's list each month.

There is a rookie mistake in the drawing of sheds. One of the fence posts touches and lines up exactly with the edge of the leaning door. This unintentional alignment creates a long jarring diagonal line. It happened because I didn’t do any preliminary setup. I just started drawing and was concentrating more on mark making than composition. Just goes to show – you always have to be thinking about the bigger picture.

Cumulus Clouds

Along the Valley
Watercolour on Paper
16.5cm x 12cm (6.5" x 4.75")

Cumulus Clouds is the first topic in the Skies and Weather chapter of Creating Textures in Pen & Ink with Watercolor by Claudia Nice.

Across the Valley
Watercolour on Paper
12cm x 16.5cm (4.75" x 6.5")

Claudia uses a wet-on-wet approach in her examples. I painted lots of skies - there were plenty of disasters and these are my favourites. I used to prefer painting skies on dry paper (see Lake District Sky Studies) because it is more controlled, but with a bit of practice (and patience), wet-on-wet seems a better technique for painting fluffy clouds. It is important not to rush in while the paper is soaking. You need to wait until the paper is beginning to dry and not to be too precious about painting exactly the clouds you can see – I ended up aiming for atmosphere not accuracy.

Drawing and Painting the Landscape – Texture and Space

West Bay Harbour
Texture and Space - Drawing and Painting the Landscape
Ink on Paper
14cm x 19cm (5.5" x 7.5")

Lesson 27 of Drawing and Painting the Landscape by Philip Tyler is about Texture and Space. It expands on the theme from previous lessons about using different marks to describe textures. It also explores how varying the level of detail though a scene can create a feeling of space and a focus for the picture.

Bradgate Park
Texture and Space - Drawing and Painting the Landscape
Charcoal on Paper
14cm x 19cm (5.5" x 7.5")

Philip observes the closer something is, the more detail and texture we can see. By using simple uniform marks in the background and increasingly distinctive marks as we move into the foreground, we create the illusion of space.

Brecon Barn
Texture and Space - Drawing and Painting the Landscape
Watercolour and Ink on Paper
16.5cm x 21.5cm (6.5" x 8.5")

He points out that if everything in a scene is treated with the same level of detail, the image lacks visual contrast and depth. He discusses simplifying the landscape and using detail to draw the eye to particular parts of the picture.

Brecon Barn (Too Much Detail)
Texture and Space - Drawing and Painting the Landscape
Watercolour and Ink on Paper
16.5cm x 21.5cm (6.5" x 8.5")

In the last picture I experimented with this idea by drawing everything with the same level of detail. It's a challenge to spend time on something and to deliberately spoil it, but it provides an important lesson about learning when to stop.

Stone Walls

Top of the Rollers
Watercolour on Paper
16cm x 22.5cm (6.25" x 8.75")

This picture was hard work. My initial washes were a disaster. I went too dark, too early and ended up with a horrible mahogany coloured mess. I nearly abandoned, but I managed to lift a lot of the colour and was left with an interesting base layer. I then modelled each of the stones individually – each one becoming a little painting in its own right. 

Stone Walls is the last topic in the Earth Textures chapter from Creating Textures in Pen & Ink with Watercolor by Claudia Nice. I'm looking forward to the next one – Skies and Weather.

Drawing and Painting the Landscape – Reinventing

 

Sketchbook Ferns (1)
Ink and Charcoal on Paper
20cm x 25cm (8" x 10")

Lesson 26 of Drawing and Painting the Landscape by Philip Tyler is called Reinventing. It contains an exercise to take close up photographs of textures you find in the landscape and to experiment with creating the essence of the texture by scribbling in your sketchbook.

Sketchbook Ferns (2)
Ink, Watercolour Marker and Charcoal on Paper
21.5cm x 29cm (8.5" x 11.5")

I experimented with some photos of ferns I took in the garden of the Egypt Mill. I’m not sure how much I learnt about drawing, but I learnt a lot about the structure of ferns. This is an exercise I intend to return to again - thinking about the texture of larger surfaces such as fields and buildings.

Stone Masonry

Harbour Wall
Watercolour on Paper
 22.5cm x 16.5cm (8.75" x 6.5")

Stone Masonry is the penultimate topic in the Earth Textures chapter from Creating Textures in Pen & Ink with Watercolor by Claudia Nice.

The picture is of a piece of St. Michael’s Mounts’ harbour wall. The outbreak of little white spot's are small limpets attached to the stones.

You find a photo of a section of the wall here https://www.stmichaelsmount.co.uk/images/uploads/feature/Village_and_Harbour/_2560px/st-michaels-mount-village-harbour-kathryn-yengel.jpg. The bit I painted is further round towards the mouth of the harbour - close to where you get on and off the ferries that operate at high tide.

As well as taking Claudia’s advice I also took some more of John Lovett’s advice from his book Textures, Techniques and Special Effects for Watercolor – as I have done for the last couple of topics.

Drawing and Painting the Landscape – Blind Touch Drawing

High Wood on a Sunny Day
Ink on Paper
28cm x 38cm (11" x 15")

Lesson 25 of Drawing and Painting the Landscape by Philip Tyler is the midpoint of the book - a course of 50 lessons. 

Across the Valley
Ink on Paper
38cm x 28cm (15" x 11")

The lesson takes the Blind Drawing exercise from lesson 3 (Drawing and Painting the Landscape – Blind Drawing) one step further.

Stroking a Christmas Tree
Blind Touch Drawing - Drawing and Painting the Landscape
Charcoal on Paper
22.5cm x 30cm (8.5" x 12")

In Lesson 3, you look at the subject (not the paper) while you are drawing. In the first part of lesson 25, you draw with your eyes closed. You close your eyes, touch the subject and draw what you feel, hear, smell or otherwise experience.

Bird Song and the A46 in the Distance
Blind Touch Drawing - Drawing and Painting the Landscape
Charcoal on Paper
22.5cm x 30cm (8.5" x 12")

The first part of the lesson also includes an exercise to look at the landscape for 5 minutes and then draw it with your eyes shut, trying to picture the scene and using your experiences in the landscape to create an image that evokes being there.  

Across the Valley
Blind Touch Drawing - Drawing and Painting the Landscape
Charcoal on Paper
30cm x 22.5cm (12" x 8.5")

The second part of the lesson is an exercise to make a series of drawings from the blind drawings “thinking about extending your mark making”. I interpreted this to mean create drawings that evoke being in the landscape using the type of marks that appear in the eyes closed exercises.

Adobe and Brick

 

Its Always Sunny
Watercolour and Charcoal on Paper
16.5cm x 22.5cm (6.5" x 8.75")

It’s always sunny in Kingswear. Whenever Elaine and I visit, we inevitably end up enjoying a drink on the Ship Inn’s patio after a long walk in the blistering sunshine. The Kingswear Hall is the other side of the road and the blue sky on a sunny day is the perfect back drop for its brickwork.

This picture was inspired by the Adobe and Brick topic in Creating Textures in Pen & Ink with Watercolor by Claudia Nice and those summer evenings at the Ship Inn.

As well as taking Claudia’s advice I also revisited John Lovett’s guidance  about brickwork from his book Textures, Techniques and Special Effects for Watercolor – which is now out of print, but there is plenty of good training material on his website.

Drawing and Painting the Landscape – Mark Making Tools

Prussia Cove
Mark Making Tools - Drawing and Painting the Landscape
Acrylic Ink on Paper
34cm x 28cm (13.5" x 11")

The exercise for Lesson 24 of Drawing and Painting the Landscape by Philip Tyler is to create your own mark making tools and explore the marks they make. I score an F for this one because I didn't read the instructions properly.  I missed a couple of critical points in Philip’s explanation:

• The exercise is about making pens - not brushes
• Philip used bamboo cut from the garden as handles for his home-made pens

I used fingers, sponges, old credit cards, bits of mount board, sticks, cotton buds and spray bottles to draw instead of making them into tools because I couldn't find anything to use as handles - even though Elaine and I have bamboo bushes in our garden - doh. Then I got carried away and treated this as a painting exercise because Phillips' home made tools look more like brushes than pens.

The Old Lodge
Mark Making Tools - Drawing and Painting the Landscape
Acrylic Ink on Paper
35cm x 24.75cm (13.75" x 9.75")

Never mind, I can cope with the F, I was getting bored with monochrome and I still managed to learn a bit more about mark making.

Sandstone

Carved Limestone
Watercolour and Charcoal on Paper
23.0cm x 15cm (9" x 6")

Elaine is going to make this discarded piece of carved limestone into a lampstand. I painted it in response to the Sandstone section in Creating Textures in Pen & Ink with Watercolor by Claudia Nice. It may seem off topic, but some of Claudia’s examples look like limestone and I couldn’t find a good sandstone subject.

I drew it with the same charcoal pencil and drawing technique as I used in the Drawing Games exercise (see Drawing and Painting the Landscape – Drawing Games (Part 2)). Natural sponges helped to create the texture - they are becoming indispensable (see Volcanic Rock and Marble).

Drawing and Painting the Landscape - Brush Drawing

Parkmill Pond
Brush Drawing - Drawing and Painting the Landscape
Indian Ink on Paper
26cm x 20cm (10.25" x 8")

Lesson 23 of  Drawing and Painting the Landscape by Philip Tyler is about drawing with a brush. Philip points out

Whilst one tends to think about the brush as a painting tool, Cozens, Turner and Rubens all used ink to make tonal brush drawings of landscape. You are dealing with transparency and opacity, and depending on the medium, soluble or waterproof materials.

Mousehole Harbour
Brush Drawing - Drawing and Painting the Landscape
Indian Ink on Paper
25.5cm x 18cm (10" x 7")

The lesson doesn't have a clearly defined exercise, but the spirit is captured by two sentences:

By working with a single colour and investigating the potential of each implement, looking at configuration and permutation, you will build up an understanding of each implement's potential.

Experiment with combining and opposing different qualities of mark and media to describe both the texture and tone of the objects and spaces in the landscape, as well as enhance your drawings, creating both space and dynamic tension.

I worked with Indian ink and a variety of brushes including the tatty old decorating brush favoured by John Lovett.

The results are reminiscent of my drawings from lesson 18 (see Drawing and Painting the Landscape - Wash Media). This isn't a surprise because, basically I've repeated the exercise, but with more focus on mark making.

Woodchester Park
Brush Drawing - Drawing and Painting the Landscape
Indian Ink on Paper
22cm x 15.5cm (8.75" x 6.25")

The lesson clarifies my desire to improve the quality of the individual marks I make. The chapter on Mark Making provides a framework for continual thought and practice, rather than exercises for to do once and forget about.

Marble

Marble
Watercolour on Paper
23.0cm x 14cm (9" x 5.5")

Richard Bertinet's bread recipes create a dough that is wet, sticky, and strong. When I make bread (an infrequent event), I knead the dough on this heavy marble block. If I am not careful, it ends up swinging around the kitchen on the end of a doughy bungee cord. 

The picture is inspired by the Marble topic in the Earth Textures chapter of Creating Textures in Pen & Ink with Watercolor by Claudia Nice.

Claudia's marble examples are more veined than this, she uses rubbing alcohol to create the distinctive marbling patterns in the watercolour washes. We don't have any rubbing alcohol lying around the house and I was unsure whether gin, beer or wine would serve as the best alternative. I used a natural sponge instead (see Volcanic Rock). This is my favourite painting tool of the moment.

Drawing and Painting the Landscape – Drawing Games (Part 2)

 

Woodchester Park Boathouse
Drawing Games - Drawing and Painting the Landscape
Charcoal Pencil on Paper
30.5cm x 21.5cm (12" x 8.5")

This is the second instalment of my drawings from Lesson 22 of Drawing and Painting the Landscape by Philip Tyler..

The “game” for these drawings was inspired by a lesson from John Lovett about Drawing, Sketching and Scribbling. 

For this game, I used a charcoal pencil - a medium I do not normally use. I held the pencil further back from the point than usual and as though I had just picked it up from the desk - rather than using the normal tripod writing grip. These changes allow you to make more fluid marks by drawing from the shoulder instead of the wrist and to easily switch between using the very tip of the pencil and the side of the lead. The new grip initially felt clumsy, but John’s premise is that confidence and conviction are more important than accuracy.

One of the most important aspects of drawing is confidence. Make your marks with conviction and don't be too concerned with accuracy. It is much better to have a clean, confident mark in the wrong place than a timid, overworked line in the right place.

The picture at the top of the post is the boathouse in Woodchester park. I think it featured in some episodes of the Crown as the boathouse at Gordonstoun, but I can’t say for sure.

Winery Barns
Drawing Games - Drawing and Painting the Landscape
Charcoal Pencil on Paper
30.5cm x 21.5cm (12" x 8.5")

These are some barns at one of the wineries in Niagara on the Lake. I think it was Iniskillin, but I took the photo in 2011, so I can’t be sure about this either.

Digger Graveyard
Drawing Games - Drawing and Painting the Landscape
Charcoal Pencil on Paper
30.5cm x 21.5cm (12" x 8.5")

There is a digger graveyard in our local woods. These are the two latest arrivals. They seem much younger than the other residents. I was hoping they were just on holiday, but things were looking bleak because they hadn’t moved for weeks. Even Doris seemed worried about them. They just sat there slowly seizing up and rusting. Until yesterday. They’ve started to do some digging and it looks like they are trying to tidy the place up a bit. Happy Days.

Drawing and Painting the Landscape – Drawing Games

Jackdaw
Drawing Games - Drawing and Painting the Landscape
Water-Soluble Graphite on Paper
39.5m x 56.5cm (15.5" x 22.25")

There didn’t seem to be any instructions for Lesson 22 of Drawing and Painting the Landscape by Philip Tyler. The spirit of the lesson is experimentation with a suggestion to use different techniques and media to reveal the different textures and layers in the landscape – which resonates with one of the lessons from Liz Steel’s SketchingNow – Edges class.

The seemed like an extension to the Making a Mess lesson (see Drawing and Painting the Landscape - Making a Mess). I ended up playing only two different games, but I played each multiple times and they both took me away from my normal approach to drawing.

For this first set of drawings, I used the water-soluble graphite block (ArtGraf Tailor Shape) I enjoyed so much in the Making a Mess lesson. 

The Mouth of the Dart
Drawing Games - Drawing and Painting the Landscape
Water-Soluble Graphite on Paper
39.5m x 56.5cm (15.5" x 22.25")

Using the water-soluble graphite is like a mixture of drawing and watercolour painting. In this drawing of the mouth of the Dart, I used different marks to convey the different layers in the landscape. The sky is horizontal marks and horizontal brushstrokes. The sea is vertical marks and vertical brushstrokes. The background hills are two layers of light swirling marks and swirling brushstrokes. The middle ground is more of the same but with more graphite and some Conté crayon marks. The foreground is much darker marks with a lot of additional Conté crayon marks.

The second set of drawings are quite different, so I will post them in a second post.

Granite

The Atlantic
Watercolour on Paper
26cm x 18cm (10" x 7")

 I love the granite coastlines of Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly. This picture is based on a few different photos of waves crashing on their rocky shorelines. It is a response to the Granite topic in the Earth Textures chapter of Creating Textures in Pen & Ink with Watercolor by Claudia Nice.

I drew several thumbnails to work out the composition before starting the picture, but I still had to make things up as I painted. Responding to a developing painting can be a good thing, but in this case the result is less dynamic than I intended. I will have to try again. Elaine, Doris and I will be returning to Cornwall after the lockdowns are lifted, so I will use the opportunity to gather more inspiration.

Dots and Lines

Across the Fields to the Old Mill on Kneeton Road
Dots and Lines - Drawing and Painting the Landscape
Ink on Paper
11.5cm x 15cm (4.5" x 6")

Lesson 21 of Drawing and Painting the Landscape by Philip Tyler is about Dots and Lines. Philip asks:

How would you draw the landscape using only horizontal lines, or vertical points? What if you combined both or introduced diagonals or curves? This drawing exercise does just this, reducing the landscape down to some basic elements.

I tried a few drawings using just dots and horizontal lines. They look like Phillip's simplest examples and do not contain enough information to convey a sense of place or atmosphere.

Vineyard - Niagara on the Lake
Dots and Lines - Drawing and Painting the Landscape
Ink on Paper
15cm x 10.5cm (6" x 4.25")

Phillip also includes examples with a wider variety of marks. He seems to identify the major lines in the landscape and use smaller repeating marks to create details and texture.

The pictures on this post are more like quick gesture drawings of a scene. I plan to try a few more and give more attention to the quality of my mark making.

Boats in Front of Smeaton's Pier
Dots and Lines - Drawing and Painting the Landscape
Ink on Paper
13cm x 10cm (5" x 4")

Volcanic Rock

Pumice
Watercolour on Paper
24.0cm x 15.5cm (9.5" x 6.25")

Elaine gave me a Moon and Lagoon Bath Caddy Tray for our Anniversary - to use in our new bath. The set came with this pumice stone. If you look carefully at the Moon and Lagoon website, you can find the item in question.

The picture is inspired by the Volcanic Rock topic in the Earth Textures chapter of Creating Textures in Pen & Ink with Watercolor by Claudia Nice.

I strived to make the drawing as precise as possible – which is a strange choice for this subject. It is not like a face where everyone can tell whether it is accurate. I had to reposition the cord a couple of times before I was happy with the relationship between rock and rope. 

Claudia suggests applying paint with a natural sponge to create some of the texture on the stone. This was fun and worked well.

Initially my painting of the rope was too dark. I dry brushed over it with tinted gouache. This improved the colour and gave it an interesting texture as well. 

When I read the topic heading, I immediately thought of the granite landscapes of Devon and Cornwall, but I had to save my holiday snaps until next time because Claudia has given Granite its own topic.

The Missing Piece of My Heart

You Are the Missing Piece of My Heart
Watercolour and Ink on Paper
10cm x 10cm (4" x 4")

It was a challenge to work out the perspective and shadows for this picture because we don't have a heart shaped jigsaw I could use for reference. This is why artists who create realistic images of imagined scenes sometimes make maquettes (models) (see James Gurney - Miniatures). These can be detailed little artworks in their own right or just accurate enough to give the information that's needed.

Happy Valentine’s Day Elaine

Drawing and Painting the Landscape – Making a Mess

 

Messy Tree
Making a Mess - Drawing and Painting the Landscape
Water-Soluble Graphite, Ink and Watercolour on Paper
18cm x 26cm (10" x 7")

Making a Mess is Lesson 20 of Drawing and Painting the Landscape by Philip Tyler

The instructions are to reach for any tool in your art bin and using scraps of paper, try to make a mess. Phillip urges us to be playful and to fill pages with as many different marks as we can without worrying about the results. 

I used a variety of tools - focussing on graphite and charcoal because I used ink for the grid exercise (see Drawing and Painting the Landscape - A Grid).

The biggest revelation was the fun you can have with water-soluble graphite. It lends itself to messiness and gets all over your hands. You can draw with it and then add water to create washes. I used a block called ArtGraf Tailor Shape. The manufacturer says:

Inspired by traditional tailor's chalk, ArtGraf Tailor Shape is a rich, water-soluble block of pigment. It is extremely soft and provides artists with a wide range of shades depending on the amount of water used, from light, transparent tones to deep, rich, opaque colours. When diluted, the Tailor's Shape acts similarly to an ink, it can also be used dry as a drawing medium by itself. It can be used as an entire block to draw or paint with or colour can be picked up from the block with a brush, similarly to how you would use traditional watercolour paint. (see https://www.viarco.pt/en/artgraf-products/).

I bought a block from Jacksons (see https://www.jacksonsart.com/viarco-artgraf-tailor-shape-watersoluble-black-carbon)

The picture at the top of the post is my favourite of the experiments and these are a few more from the pile.

This is the sort of exercise I need to incorporate into my regular practice. If I don’t feel like drawing, but I have a few minutes, I can experiment with mark making.

Gravel

Gravel
Ink and Watercolour
Stillman & Birn Alpha Series Sketchbook
20.3cm x 14.0cm (8.0" x 5.5")

Gravel is the third topic in the Earth Textures chapter of Creating Textures in Pen & Ink with Watercolor by Claudia Nice.

I struggled to find inspiring reference images of gravel. Am I odd? Does everyone else have albums full of their favourite gravel photographs? Claudia included drawings of small stones in her gravel drawings, so I took the  same approach. While I was drawing these stones, I realised how much I enjoy and miss detailed observation. I plan to do more over the next few weeks.

Hurlstone Point from Porlock Weir
Watercolour and Ink on Paper
21.5cm x 13.0cm (8.5" x 5")

The one photo of gravel I found is this view of Hurlstone Point from Porlock Weir. I've posted pictures of this view before (see The View From Porlock Weir). I prefer the colours in those earlier paintings, but I quite like the gravel in this one.

Drawing and Painting the Landscape – A Grid

A Grid - Drawing and Painting the Landscape
Ink on Paper
21cm x 21cm (8.25" x 8.25")

Chapter 5 of Drawing and Painting the Landscape by Philip Tyler is about mark making. The instructions for Lesson 19 (the first lesson in the chapter) are to draw a 20cm by 20cm grid and fill each box with a different set of marks. Philip observes “At first it will be easy but as you continue to fill the 400 boxes, you will probably begin to repeat yourself.” 

I usually use fineliners for drawing - these are pens with a plastic or fine fibre needle-point tip. They are easy to use and available with various tip sizes. During the exercise, I used various fineliner, brush, fountain and dip pens. It struck me that pen with nibs and brushes are more interesting to use than fineliners. With a nib or a brush, you can alter the mark by playing with the orientation of the pen and the amount of pressure you apply. If you press hard on a fineliner, you don’t achieve much other than knackering the tip.