Eyes

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

Eyes is (are?) the second topic in the "The Look of Transparency" - Chapter 3 of Creating Textures in Pen & Ink with Watercolor by Claudia Nice.

My Eye
Watercolour and Ink on Paper
280mm x 190mm (11" x 7.5")

The picture of my eye was drawn while looking in the mirror. Initially, it was an accurate observation. After I made a couple of mistakes, I had to improvise (lie), to make it read properly. Doris' eye is an ink drawing with a watercolour tint. My eye is a watercolour with some ink details.

The Sixties Want Their Picture Back
Acrylic on Paper
84.1cm x 59.4cm (33.1" x 23.4")

The picture of Doris's eye was drawn from a photograph because she won't stay still long enough to draw anything other than a gesture - unless she is asleep - which isn't the best time for drawing eyes. I manipulated the photograph in a photo editor to explore the patterns of lights and darks. This was the inspiration for the more "abstract" version.

Drawing and Painting the Landscape - Block-Ins

Boats on the Dart
Block-Ins - Drawing and Painting the Landscape
Charcoal
Stillman & Birn Alpha Series Sketchbook
21.5cm x 15.25cm (8.5" x 6")

Lesson 12 of  Drawing and Painting the Landscape by Philip Tyler is about Block-ins. Philip's instructions are to think about the big tonal masses and try to see how light and dark they are. He advises using the side of a piece of charcoal to block-in these areas of tone.

Ladram Rock
Block-Ins - Drawing and Painting the Landscape
Charcoal
Stillman & Birn Alpha Series Sketchbook
21.5cm x 15.25cm (8.5" x 6")

These studies are drawn from photographs - except the view towards Gatcombe Farm - which I drew from my office window. I converted the photos to black-and-white before drawing them - which helped me to see the tones.

Isles of Sciliy
Block-Ins - Drawing and Painting the Landscape
Charcoal
Stillman & Birn Alpha Series Sketchbook
21.5cm x 15.25cm (8.5" x 6")

The pictures are probably too detailed to be called block-ins, but I enjoyed drawing them and started each one by blocking in the major shapes as Phillip instructed.

Waves Breaking - Mousehole
Block-Ins - Drawing and Painting the Landscape
Charcoal
Stillman & Birn Alpha Series Sketchbook
21.5cm x 15.25cm (8.5" x 6")

I used my fingers to blend the charcoal and smooth the tones. This isn't a recommended approach for creating refined charcoal drawings but added character to these sketches.

Towards a Gatcombe Farm
Block-Ins - Drawing and Painting the Landscape
Charcoal
Stillman & Birn Alpha Series Sketchbook
21.5cm x 15.25cm (8.5" x 6")

There are another 6 lessons in this chapter about tonal drawing. I intend to work from photographs to practice the techniques, but to complete at least one study in each lesson outside. As the weather improves, I will try to swing the balance more towards working directly from the landscape.

River Usk Near Gliffaes
Block-Ins - Drawing and Painting the Landscape
Charcoal
Stillman & Birn Alpha Series Sketchbook
21.5cm x 15.25cm (8.5" x 6")

A couple of the scenes have appeared in previous posts.There is a line drawing of a similar view of Gatcombe Farm on Measured Drawing and there is a painting of Ladram Rock from a few years ago on Ladram Rocks.

Glass

Kilner Jar
Ink and Watercolour
Moleskine A4 Watercolour Album
297mm x 210mm (11.69" x 8.27")

Sometimes it’s difficult to summon the enthusiasm to draw something else from around the house. When this happens, it's useful to have someone else suggesting interesting or unusual subjects - it's one less thing to procrastinate about. Creating Textures in Pen & Ink with Watercolor by Claudia Nice provides a useful list of prompts.

Elaine gave me the book as a Christmas gift. The first chapter is about materials and the second explains basic texturing techniques. In the remaining chapters, Claudia describes the techniques she uses to render a variety of surfaces. For each topic, she provides examples that are primarily ink drawings with a little bit of watercolour to tint them and other examples which are primarily watercolour paintings with a little bit of ink to add definition. Chapter 3 is called "The Look of Transparency" and Glass is the first subject.

Jar and Bottle
Watercolour and Ink on Paper
280mm x 190mm (11" x 7.5")

The green jar and pink bottle is predominantly watercolour, the Kilner jar is predominantly an ink drawing and the vinegar bottle uses my current sketching technique – heavily influenced by Liz Steel's SketchingNow courses.

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

I need to be more patient building up textures and shading in ink. This is something I will work on with the next subject - Eyes.

Drawing and Painting the Landscape – Grey Scales

Chapter 4 of Drawing and Painting the Landscape by Philip Tyler is about tonal drawing (monochromatic drawings – often in pencil or charcoal).

Lesson 11 (the first lesson in the chapter) explores grey scales (a range of grey shades from white to black). I've posted greyscales in some early posts (see Tonal Studies and Keys to Drawing - Chapter 2).

Most dictionaries contain an entry for greyscale but not grey scale. Grey scale is probably the original spelling. Over the years grey scale became grey-scale which became greyscale (or grayscale) particularly when discussing technology. The contrary Blogger spellchecker recognises grey scale and grey-scale, but not greyscale - this is the only exception I've found.

The lesson includes an exercise to create greyscales in a variety of media. Philip recommends creating scales with between 9 and 12 tones. He suggests once you have generated a scale, you can use it as a reference to classify tones in the landscape.

I produced greyscales using pencils, charcoal, compressed charcoal and acrylic paint. I was too enthusiastic applying fixative to the charcoal greyscale and sprayed most of the charcoal across the page - this is an important lesson because the next exercise uses charcoal.

I spent most effort refining my acrylic grey scale. The upper part of the image at the top of the post shows my best attempt. In the lower part, the small blocks show a perfect greyscale with 7 equally spaced tones between white and black. The big blocks are a desaturated (black-and-white) version of my scale. This is useful for comparison because the black paint has a blue tinge in the paler mixtures - which makes it difficult to compare it against a pure grey.

I din't have enough patience for this exercise with the dry media. I will get some practice creating different tones of grey with charcoal in the next lesson "Block ins" and will create some more charcoal greyscales after that.

Happy Christmas 2019

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

Drawing and Painting the Landscape – The Figure in the Landscape

Brixham Boat
Watercolour and Conté
Moleskine A4 Watercolour Album
297mm x 210mm (11.69" x 8.27")

Yes, we can all see it is a boat, not a figure.

Lesson 10 of Drawing and Painting the Landscape by Philip Tyler is the last lesson in the chapter about perspective. The lesson is called The Figure in the Landscape, but it also deals with the impact of perspective on reflections and shadows, distortion and the cone of vision, aerial perspective, Cezanne? and boats.

Waiting for the Dhoni
Watercolour on Paper
190mm x 280mm (11" x 5.5")

Philip starts the lesson by stating that people give scale to a landscape and therefore it is important to understand how to draw them in proportion. He observes:

• Figures (like everything else) recede to the horizon 
• Most people are about the same height, so on flat ground most people's eye level will be close to the horizon line (the eye level of the artist – and the viewer).

The painting of Elaine in the Maldives isn't flattering, but illustrates these ideas. Elaine's head is slightly below the horizon because we are both standing on the flat pier and Elaine is slightly shorter than me. The top of the boat is also close to the horizon because its canopy is at about head height. If Elaine was to walk along the pier away from me, she would appear smaller, the top of her head would stay at about the same level, so her feet would move up the page. Releasing the same holds true for the (approximately person high boat) boat was an important revelation for me.

Small, Far Away

I've spent far too long playing with Philip's advice to initially think about a boat as a box. I will come back to perspective, but for now I am moving on.

Doodling

Sea Mist Rising
Ink on Paper
20.5cm x 20.5cm (8" x 8")

I’m doodling to get back into the habit of making marks on paper – taking some inspiration from Peter Draws. When I am doodling, if I notice I am deliberating too long about what to draw next, I just draw some patterns - anything to keep the pen moving.

I plan to get back on with some sketching over the next few weeks.