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.  

.

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.