Drawing and Painting the Landscape – Continuous Tones

Winter Afternoon in the Trent Hills
Continuous Tones - Drawing and Painting the Landscape
Charcoal on Paper
60.5cm x 45cm (23.5" x 17.55")

Between the lessons on Collage and Erased Drawing in Drawing and Painting the Landscape by Philip Tyler there is a sub section on Continuous Tones - in which Phillip recommends using charcoal to further develop an understanding of tonal range. He suggests using the side of the charcoal to create the darkest areas and then to use the side of the hand or kitchen towels to create mid tones before finally adding more subtle tonal changes.

The section offers some good advice about working with charcoal. I enjoyed this drawing, but I'm not sure charcoal will ever be my favourite medium.

Polished Silver

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

Polished Silver is the first topic in Metallic Impressions - Chapter 4 of  Creating Textures in Pen & Ink with Watercolor by Claudia Nice.

This is one of Elaine's necklaces. The shapes in it are inspired by the carved masonry at Southwell Minster. It is one of the most complicated things I've drawn in a long time. In some places you can see the ghostly outline of a second necklace.  These are my original pencil lines before I adjusted the drawing to improve the accuracy.  The painting doesn't really convey the appearance of polished silver. In retrospect, I should have used paler washes - something to remember for next time.

Direct Watercolour

Amberley War Memorial
Warercolour on Paper
18cm x 12.5cm (7" x 4.75")

30x30DirectWatercolor is an annual event organised by Marc Taro Holmes (Citizen Sketcher). The challenge involves painting 30 watercolour paintings on the 30 days of June.

Direct watercolour implies minimal (or no) under drawing, and working wet-in-wet in a single pass without waiting for layers to dry before continuing.

Brewery Lane
Warercolour on Paper
18cm x 12.5cm (7" x 4.75")

The challenge inspired me to try a few paintings without my usual safety net of a detailed initial drawing. In the spirit of lock-down, I added the constraint of painting local scenes from Google Maps Street View. The results are a bit wonkier than I normally strive for, but better than I anticipated.

All Saints
Warercolour on Paper
18cm x 12.5cm (7" x 4.75")

The painting of the Amberley war memorial was a particular surprise. I expected it to be a disaster because I sweated for ages drawing the perspective of the memorial in St Peter's for Bob and still didn't quite get it right - there might be a lesson for me here.

The Bell
Warercolour on Paper
18cm x 12.5cm (7" x 4.75")

We have just got back from having our Sunday lunch at the Bell. They had all their doors open today, to allow for a one way system as part of their Covid 19 social distancing measures - strange times.

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.