Drawing and Painting the Landscape – Collage

That Mon & Brec View Again
Collage - Drawing and Painting the Landscape
Collage and Ink
21.5cm x 14.5cm (8.5" x 5.75")

Lesson 16 of Drawing and Painting the Landscape by Philip Tyler is about collage. Philip explains the technique and sets an exercise to make collages from newspaper painted with white, black and yellow ochre acrylic paint. He cautions against tracing shapes on to the collage paper and suggests instead visualising your scalpel or scissors as drawing tools and collage as an organic process of addition and subtraction.

Portland and the Chesil Beach from Abbotsbury Hill
Collage - Drawing and Painting the Landscape
Collage
21cm x 14.5cm (15.5" x 6")

The view of Portland and the Chesil beach from Abbotsbury Hill has appeared on a previous post (see From Abbotsbury Hill). This is one of my favourite views. I have precious memories of stopping in the lay-by on long hot cycle rides for an ice-cream and a cold drink.

The view from the Monmoutshire & Brecon Canal has also featured on previous posts about Drawing and Painting the Landscape (see Revealed Landscape, Partial Peak and Negative Painting).

Surf and Ocean Waves

Surf off St Martin's
Watercolour on Paper
210mm x 165mm (8.25" x 6.5")

"Surf and Ocean Waves" is the last topic in the "The Look of Transparency" chapter of Creating Textures in Pen & Ink with Watercolor by Claudia Nice. This is another subject for which Claudia’s step by step pictures were helpful to understand how she built up her painting.

This picture is based on some photos of the surf off St Martin’s in the Isles of Scilly. Elaine and I are planning to visit the islands again, this time with Doris. You can fly with your dog from Land’s End on an 8-seater BN2 Islander – it’s a really enjoyable experience. Doris would love the Isle of Scilly and we are sure she would like flying as well - pretty sure (ish).

Waterfalls

Lightspout
Watercolour and Ink on Paper
160mm x 240mm (6.25" x 9.5")

"Waterfalls" is the penultimate topic in the "The Look of Transparency" chapter of Creating Textures in Pen & Ink with Watercolor by Claudia Nice. My choice of subjects was limited to Niagara Falls or Lightspout on the Long Mynd. These are opposite ends of the waterfall spectrum and not great candidates for the techniques Claudia describes.

The topic at least served as a prompt to try a subject that I have shied away from for a long time – the photo is from 2008. It always makes me smile because I love the Long Mynd, but it is probably Elaine's least favourite venue for a walk. I was never sure why she disliked it. I suspected it was because it usually rains (heavily) every time we visit, but Elaine says its because there are no convenient pub or toilets.

I haven't made much use of pen and ink in this chapter - I'm going to make a conscious effort to do more ink drawing in the next chapter - Metallic Impressions.

Compositions with Empty Space

Tranquillity
Watercolour on Paper
40.5cm x 34cm (16" x 13.35")

The duotone study of yachts moored off St Mary's in the Isles of Scilly (see Drawing and Painting the Landscape - Duotone) inspired me to try the largest watercolour I've painted in a long time – maybe 8 years.

Since I started painting, I've admired artists who have the confidence and ability to create pictures containing empty space - particularly big empty foregrounds. Whenever I tried it, the results just looked unfinished and I've ended up cropping the blank space. What was their secret?

The answer is (of course?) their compositional skills. Exercises like Duotone and the Five-Value Monochrome Study from Tom Hoffmann's  Watercolor Painting (see Five-Value Monochrome Study) help me to better understand where details are not needed in an image.

The Principles of Composition exercises from Composition by Arthur Wesley Dow have also given me some insight into how blank space fits into a satisfying composition. I’m sure the later chapters on Line and Notan would help even more, but they are not at the top of my study list because there are lots of other resources I am keen to experiment with and learn from.

Its interesting to reflect on what I’ve learnt from where. In March, Stephanie asked

I notice that you are often working your way through an instruction book or course. Do you have any recommendations for the order someone should choose these resources? I would love to see a page where you gather links to your posts that review your thoughts on a book once you've finished with it.

I’ve realised this is going to be a time-consuming undertaking. I’ve started the first steps:

• Create a list of all the resources I've mentioned on this blog and others I’ve used but not discussed
• Make sure the blog posts that discuss each source are properly tagged
• Write two sentences for each resource to explain whether I finished the material and whether I would recommend it to someone else

I will post this information when it is ready.

Drawing and Painting the Landscape - Duotone

Sheep Grazing from the Mon & Brec
Duotone - Drawing and Painting the Landscape
Ink on Paper
13.5cm x 9.5cm (5.25" x 3.75")

Lesson 15 of Drawing and Painting the Landscape by Philip Tyler continues with the black, white and grey studies introduced in the previous lesson (Drawing and Painting the Landscape - Negative Painting).

Walberswick Beach
Duotone - Drawing and Painting the Landscape
Ink on Paper
9.5cm x 13.5cm (3.75" x 5.25")

The focus of the lesson is identifying the grey shapes and thinking about the balance of the three tones - is the scene mostly grey with a few black shadows and white highlights?

Kennet and Avon
Duotone - Drawing and Painting the Landscape
Promarker on Paper
9cm x 12.5cm (3.5" x 5")

Phillip recommends the use of photo editing software to help simplify the landscape into tonal masses. The initial exercise uses grey and black promarkers (permanent alcohol-based markers) on white paper. Phillip then suggests making a series of three-tone studies using a range of dry and wet media on white and toned surfaces.

Near the Otter Estuary
Duotone - Drawing and Painting the Landscape
Promarker on Paper
16cm x 11cm (6.25" x 4.25")

I did a lot of experiments and particularly enjoyed the ink on toned paper. Some of these are more detailed and lack the spontaneity of Philips examples, but this can be a symptom of drawing and painting from photographs.

Moorings Near Hugh Town
Duotone - Drawing and Painting the Landscape
Promarker on Paper
16cm x 11cm (6.25" x 4.25")

The lesson reminded me of the Five-Value Monochrome Study from Tom Hoffmann's Watercolor Painting (see Five-Value Monochrome Study). This provided a useful connection because Tom's exercise isn't about accurately replicating the tones in the landscape, it is about creating a picture that makes sense to the viewer.

Whitewater

Shelter
Watercolour and Ink on Paper
220mm x 165mm (8.5" x 6.5")

Castleton on a cold wet February day in 2014. The ducks were sheltering from the worst of the wind and rain in the lee of the wall.

Whitewater is the fourth topic in the "The Look of Transparency" chapter of Creating Textures in Pen & Ink with Watercolor by Claudia Nice.

I'm getting into the swing of using Claudia's book. Initially, I use the topic as a prompt to find objects or photos to paint - this helps to limit any dithering over a subject. I then read Claudia's notes and apply her suggestions to my subjects. The topic included an image of Claudia's partially complete picture. This helped me to understand her approach.

The initial wash for the white-water worked well, but I made a glaring mistake with the stream. I painted long strokes in the water's direction of travel towards the waterfall. This made the stream look as though it was on a 45° slope. In the second wash and ink drawing I used horizontal lines to neutralise this effect and to emphasise the calmness and flatness of the water before it reaches the precipice.

Drawing and Painting the Landscape - Negative Painting

Woodchester Mansion
Negative Painting - Drawing and Painting the Landscape
Thick grey ground - Acrylic on MDF
16cm x 19cm (6.25" x 7.5")

Lesson 14 of Drawing and Painting the Landscape by Philip Tyler is called Negative Painting.

River Trent Evening
Negative Painting - Drawing and Painting the Landscape
Thick black on thin white ground - Acrylic on MDF
16cm x 19cm (6.25" x 7.5")

The instructions are to paint six rectangles on MDF with acrylic paint - two white, two black and two grey. For each colour, paint one rectangle with a thin layer of paint and the other with a thick layer stiffened with impasto or texture medium.

Langdale Fells
Negative Painting - Drawing and Painting the Landscape
Thin black on thick white ground - Acrylic on MDF
16cm x 19cm (6.25" x 7.5")

On the thick white background, paint a notan using a thin transparent layer of black acrylic. On the thin white background, use thick black paint. Similarly, thin white paint on the thick black background and thick white paint on the thin black background. On the grey backgrounds experiment with alternate thin and thick layers of white and black.

From the Mon & Brec
Negative Painting - Drawing and Painting the Landscape
Thick white on thin black ground - Acrylic on MDF
16cm x 19cm (6.25" x 7.5")

Philip suggests using a palette knife to apply the thick paints. I ended up using a variety of different tools including a painting knife, old plastic loyalty cards and tatty decorating brushes. I embraced the advice from lesson 13 of trying to instil energy into the studies and not to be frightened of making marks in the wrong place.

Old Hill Tree
Negative Painting - Drawing and Painting the Landscape
Thin white on thick black ground - Acrylic on MDF
16cm x 19cm (6.25" x 7.5")

Negative painting means painting the space around an object rather than painting the object. I painted the black on white images first and couldn't / wouldn't / didn't apply the idea of negative painting to them - these are simply 2 value notans (see Drawing and Painting the Landscape - The Notan). I was more successful with the studies on the black and grey grounds. These felt like negative painting. On the black background, I was conscious of creating the black shapes by painting around them in white. Similarly, on the grey background I was mindful of painting around the grey shapes.

From Gurnard's Head
Negative Painting - Drawing and Painting the Landscape
Thin grey ground - Acrylic on MDF
16cm x 19cm (6.25" x 7.5")

All these studies were painted indoors from photographs of our holidays and more local walks.