paintings prints and stuff

Birch trees in watercolour and coloured pencil: demo for class

2012-01-31T17:14:00.000Z

Watercolour and coloured pencil, approx 7.5 x 9.5 ins

This one was done yesterday as a class demo. Last week we'd looked at how various artists handled trees and undergrowth. This week we looked at the sketchbooks of John Blockley, David Hockney, Kurt Jackson and David Prentice, also the line and wash work that Sue Lewington does.

Then they wanted a demo of birches to see how I worked and discuss methods, order, techniques etc.

It was done straight into watercolour, no preliminary drawing with pencil, with a mix of White Nights and W&N artists pans, on heavy watercolour paper, type unknown as it was donated by one of the class. There are slight touches of watercolour pencils in there too.

There has been a lot of this sort of light on my journey to and from work lately - brooding skies ahead but sunlight where I am, making the landscape glow. This particular section is on a highish plateau - the countryside isn't actually this flat roundabout but appears to be in this view.

The trees were sketched in with paint first so that the white of the paper could be retained as necessary. Then far trees, field, sky and foreground foliage were added in layers and glazes.

I used these brushes plus a rigger for the calligraphic marks of the foliage and for parts of the trees.

When it was dry I added touches of Derwent Studio pencil to increase the glow or add extra shadow in a couple of places.

The harbour, Newquay, rainy day. Derwent Artists coloured pencils.

2012-01-29T13:44:00.003Z

Newquay Harbour, Rainy Day, 6x3 ins approx

More testing of Derwent products and again with the Fisher 400 paper. I do love this surface for working on.

Like the Derwent Coloursoft pencils, the Artist Pencils work beautifully on this sanded paper. Colours went down richly and overlaid and mixed really well - whites actually reading as white. There was a good range of subtle colours that I could choose from to mix and overlay. So necessary to achieve the soft grey green and a hint of pale blue and viridian in the sea, palest pink and cream that shone through the sky a little.

It's just a tiny sketch which I wanted to keep loose, not getting into overmuch detail, wanting to catch the misty air and the soft colours on a very small scrap of paper.

Not an Emmet in site (old Cornish word for mosquito - now applied to tourists ;>D ) - all quiet with the sea softly rolling in, no wild waves today, and the gentle subtle colours of sea, sky and stone.

The Drawing Painting series will continue in a day or so :>)

Observation: a key element in making your paintings and drawings better, 1 of 10

2012-01-27T16:26:00.005Z

Leonardo da Vinci, Hands

I've been asked to expand on the points I made in my post about what I considered the essential elements in drawing and painting. So, I'll take each point at a time and expand on what I mean, with examples. This is 1 of 10.

Because I think globally, holistically, I find it difficult to separate them! My brain is wired so that these elements totally interlock and depend upon each other. I will attempt to talk about each separately - with occasional lapses and links because I can't help it!

1 Observation: All the images shown here are the result of intense observation from life.

Unless your work is totally abstract, with no representational element at all, observation is crucial. A different kind of observation is still needed even then. Learn to look hard. It's often necessary to take longer looking than actually drawing.

Each time I say drawing, please read painting-and-drawing, it becomes too much of mouthful to write it in full each time.

Look at the beautiful sensitive, yet powerful work above by Leonardo. The sensitive shading, chiaroscuro, fading off into those beautiful fluid lines that still define form, solidity and flow of muscles. See here I want to start talking about marks .... but I'll resist. And aren't the traditional descriptions of art techniques in Italian just lovely? chiaroscuro, sfumato, pentimenti .......

Observation needn't result in such a traditional image. It equally underlies the beautiful expressive drawings of Van Gogh,

Van Gogh

Van Gogh isn't only observing solid objects in the landscape. He's trying to draw the wind, the wild movement of grasses and the tree, the swirling clouds and the feel of the day. For this he has to work out the marks needed to express them - ooops marks again you see, solidly interwined with the observation, but I'll talk about them in post number 4 in this series.

Degas

See how keenly Degas is observing the dancer, unhappy with the leg, he's redrawn it next to the figure. The arms and head have been redrawn. Don't be precious with drawings, be prepared to redraw, move things that are wrong, push it around until you are happy with it.

I highly recommend almost any book by John Blockley, amazing observation but so freely worked (oh dear, marks again) Look how those houses nestle into the mountain, almost a part of it.

Goat Skull, Vivien Blackburn, watercolour and coloured pencil

In these drawings I was trying to show the form, catch the light, the hardness of bone and the more crumbling feel of the delicate internal structures.

As the shape was a difficult one, I constantly considered what was in line with what,horizontally and vertically. I mentally compared measurements. Were the proportions right? how did the size of the eye socket compare with that dip of the cheek? the height of the overall thing compared with the width? if I took an imaginary line down from the point of a horn what was below ? etc.

another view, in carbon pencil

Practice: In these studies of a goat skull, I was drawng in a fairly traditional way, the drawings were purely about observation practice (and marks!) . Complete in themselves they aren't information gathering for future paintings as some of my sketches are.

They were done in class as a demonstration, working between discussions with students about their own work, they drifted by from time to time, to look as it progressed and ask questions.

My advice to anyone wanting to improve is to do things like this. I found it complex, difficult and challenging. Take time, observe closely, rather than dash off quick and shallow pieces in a rush to fill a sketchbook.   Working from life improves drawings fast, my students have proved it over and over again. To improve: practice, practice, practice.

Working from 2D images, photographs or other peoples work makes it harder to produce a good result, doesn't exercise your observation in the same way, even though it may at first seem easier.   It takes experience to be able to imagine the 3 dimensionality and allow for the distortions in light and perspective of a photograph.

So, I wouldn't say don't work from photographs, but use with caution and understand their shortcomings.

On about week 3 or 4 of a new student starting a course with me, they come up to me to say 'I see so much more now, I notice all these colours in clouds, trees, the fields, grey pavements .... whatever'    and they have no idea that the other students all came out with the same comment in their time :>)    That's success - they are observing. :>)

Why are drawing/painting what you are?

This is important to consider from the beginning - is it to express the smoothness of skin and the articulation of joints like the Leonardo, the wind and weather in the landscape like Van Gogh, the textures, perspective and form as I was trying with my goat skull or the movements and form of a dancer as with Degas?   mood can be important, a sense of melancholy, the excitement of the theatre, tranquillity and more. Knowing what aspects made it interesting to you helps you to focus on expressing these - how is for later posts on marks, colour etc.

Links you may find worth looking at

Turner's sketchbooks at the Tate Gallery

Durer, drawing of feet

Kurt Jackson, tree

Lowry and an incredibly powerful self portrait

David Poxon realism and acute observation

Hockney
The recent facsimile sketchbook (well worth buying) shows very Van Gogh like marks in many drawings - ooops those marks again

Van Gogh, boots, article

Urban sketchers - a blog of sketchers worldwide with some excellent work

Paul Lewin painting and drawing

So many more I could have included - take a look at the links in the sidebar to artists I admire and you'll see other great examples.

and consider the marks as you look ;>D   I'll talk about that in post 4 of this series

What are the essential, key elements in drawing and painting better?

2012-01-26T17:38:00.006Z

Cardoon, detail, coloured pencil

What are the crucial , vital, key elements in drawing and painting? There isn't a hard division between painting and drawing - they blur into each other - for instance, charcoal is extremely painterly and paintings need drawing elements (with paint).

For me the key elements are:

observation and underlying drawing skills even in very free or very sketchy work, it's what makes it hang together believably - it doesn't need to result in a photorealist image, just one where proportions and perspective and form are shown. The observation in a Degas sketch is amazing, with life and vitality, but not photo like. The sketches of David Hockney or Van Gogh are made up of pattern and marks - but the landscape reads, uphill down dale and the woods and hedgerows flow.
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good use of tone, showing the full range observable - this may be limited as in a subtle Gwen John interior - but more often has a wide range of contrasts. Half close your eyes to simplify tonal values capture them with more ooomph. Don't forget 'lost' edges where things next to each other may be different colours (or not), but are tonally equal and the edge is indistinct,
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using line where the flow of it creates form and movement - but not to simply outline, if a line is used it has to 'earn its keep' and be there because it's doing a job of work and the weight and tone of it vary with the delicacy of the subject or distance or suggesting a 'lost edge'.
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the marks made - a wide variety of marks to help express the texture, form, feel of an object or the landscape; the roughness of bark, the liquidity and weight of the sea, the tangle of undergrowth or branches. A variety of tools or media helps with this - it's why so much of my work is mixed media - so that I can pick up the tool or medium that will give the mark I want. Don 't be too neat - most works seen up close have areas of scribbly marks - looking at a reproduction in a book makes thing appear tighter and neater than they are in real life.
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Colour - learning to mix a wide range of bright and subtle colours - what Jeanne Dobie , in Making Color Sing, calls 'mouse colours' are essential to make a painting glow without being garish. This is a really good book and not too basic, so it's quickly outgrown. One to dip into as work progresses.
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Composition - don't assume that you have to fit everything in, a crop can be much more interesting. And don't have all elements (trees or lemons or whatever) the same size and shape - vary). Vary angles, think how the eye moves around the painting, not just the 'rule of thirds' - colour and tone can enable to break 'rules' by guiding the eye onward. Great examples of this 'rule breaking' is in the current Lowry exhibition at the Djanogly gallery at the University of Nottingham - a great show. Read this post for my thoughts on the visit and his unusual compositional devices.
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Quiet vs busy areas - which is really part of composition - it's easy to overcomplicate (I know all too well ;>) ) - leave areas of quietness, spaces that offset the areas of interest with more detail.
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Colour balance - some, a little and a lot is a suggestion that frequently works well, not having the same quantity of each dominant colour - and harmony, using not too many colours within one painting. I like to have a wide range of pigments to choose from but within any one work, won't use too many at a time. I'm definitely not of the 'you only need one red, one yellow and one blue' school. Just as an example; without magenta it isn't possible to get zinging translucent pinky purples, and without pthalo blue and viridian I wouldn't be able to mix the colours of Cornish seas. There are other colours it's lovely to have simply for the effect they have in colour mixes. And the colours that magenta and viridian make when mixed are just delicious!
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Using sketchbooks - to work out ideas, to practice, to research, to do plein air work that will later lead on to finished paintings in any medium, to stick interesting things in, quotes, articles ... anything. I have a few facsimile artists sketchbooks, including Kurt Jackson, David Prentice, John Blockley and now A Yorkshire Sketchbook by Hockney. I love sketchbooks. They show the underlying thinking, the shorthand marks, sometimes the written thoughts, giving an insight into an artists wider body of work. Sketches can be simple pencil line, more developed with tone, pen, charcoal, watercolour, oil and much much more and a mix of any of the above - that's what's in my books anyway! Don't only set out to do 'finished pieces' - play, explore and it will feed into those finished pieces later.
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Get out to galleries to see past masters and contemporary work. As I said when talking about marks - work that appears very realist, when seen close up can be made up of scribbles and gloops of paint - just take a close up look at the lace in a Rembrandt for a great example of this.

That's my two pennyworth! What do you think is essential?

and I'm going to take each of those elements and go into them more, with examples, one by one.

cat sketch in tinted charcoal and a visit to the Lowry exhibition

2012-01-18T15:25:00.002Z

sketch in Derwent tinted charcoal

Last week I went to the Lowry exhibition at the Djanogly gallery, Nottinghm University with my class.   It was fascinating. I didn't know a lot about Lowry, though I liked his large cityscapes - we have a very good one in the gallery here.

What I hadn't seen before were paintings like this one, a self portrait, done when his mother was dying - it's uncomfortable - the grief, the lack of sleep, the battling on with stiff-upper-lip - it's all there in bleak uncompromising detail.

The text next to paintings and the catalogue (I couldn't resist, I bought one, the colour repro and quality is excellent) were very good, setting the scene - the wars, the bombsites, the area suffered devastating damage, explaining the open areas in a densely built industrial area of the city. Apparently some remained right up to the 1970's. The Depression, the death of the cotton industry, a huge employer, adding to the high toll of unemplyment and poverty.   It's all there in his work, the bleak sadness, the crowds, the fights, the evictions and arrests - the spirit of it all.

His use of composition is frequently unconventional - with many a lampost or factory chimney slap bang in the middle of the painting or a wall across the front - a conventional no-no - but he then makes it work with clever use of tone, colour etc to lead your eye through.   His use of small areas of red, a frequent device, that softens with distance and carries your eye across the work as he intends is sophisticated.

I wasn't so keen on the bleak paintings of the countryside - simplified, sad, grim. This one is typical.

They had a lot of his drawings, linear, with virtually no shading in the cityscapes but a mass of detail and activity with subtle variation in the weight of line to depict aerial perspective and characters caught bustling by, fighting, standing watching, drunk, playing football and more, their expressions varied, caricatured but so telling. Also a life drawing - traditional, shaded, detailed and completely different again.

To see a range of his work click here

We all came away buzzing - it's a great show, do visit it if you are near enough.

There is another sketch in the tinted charcoal here

Mixed Media - Derwent Inktense Blocks with their Tinted Charcoal and a white Sennelier oil pastel: Cliffs and wrecked ship

2012-01-09T16:03:00.001Z

Wreck, sketch with Derwent Inktense block, tinted charcoal and white oil pastel

This was a play to try out some new brushes (Christmas present from himself). So, I thought I'd continue using the Derwent materials I was given, to test mixes of these as well.

I used a photo of a wreck we found when cliff walking a few years ago. From this side it looked whole - from the other side it looked as if someone had sliced it in half, almost totally hollow. First I laid down a few areas of colour for cliffs and boat. Once I knew where they would be, I laid down scribbles of surf with a white Sennelier oil pastel - no other brand works as well for a resist to water media as the Sennelier, they are lush. I used Inktense blocks, partly drawing and partly for lifting colour from, to wash further colour in the sea, the cliffs and the boat.. I then drew into the dried painting with Derwents Tinted Charcoal to add further detail and texture. The mix of media worked well. This may be developed into a finished version at some point (a new painting not a continuation).

I don't really like using photos as there is no movement and you can't see into shadows as well, but I can't get back to Cornwall right now - so this is the next best thing :>) I have painted plein air in this area - a lot!

I do like the clear colours of the Inktense for the seas in particular. They are so lovely and translucent, but rich and vibrant. It's possible to capture the vivid turquoise/viridian of the sea in that area on a sunny day with the Inktense. You can get little holders for them to keep your fingers clean - I wouldn't use them myself but for anyone who dislikes getting paint on their hands they are ideal. I just want to go with the flow and not keep stopping to fit holders.

The muted colours of the tinted charcoal pencils were pefect for scribbled marks in the clifftop and rocks and adding a little detail to the ship.

Other work using Inktense

Using muted colours: Derwent Tinted Charcoal Pencils and Academy Drawing Pencils

2012-01-04T17:09:00.002Z

Winter

I'm still working my way through the lovely items that Derwent sent me to try out :>) and have been adding things to the review I did of their lightweight, hardback sketchbook at the end of last year, as I've continued to doodle and see what things can do.

This first one is a view of the winter fields - the tin of tinted charcoal pencils was ideal for this and gave a lovely limited colour range of warm and cool that play against each other perfectly. I can see me using these frequently for wintry days. They are fast to work with which is a bonus in our current weather when plein air. They would combine interestingly with other media. Something I've yet to try out. (edit: I have now mixed them with inktense here and will add more links as I try them with other media)

Then I tried out their Academy Tame and Wild Set - also limited colours - whilst waiting for a family member visiting the GP. This was my view from the car :>) It has some pastel sticks in the set but, wanting to keep my hands clean and only having a short wait, I limited myself to the pencils for this. The ochre colour doesn't pick up very well in the scanner sadly - but it's there in areas, particularly the mud splashes on thebottom of the door.

and of course there were the Graphitints, in an earlier post

These were all done in the lightweight A4 sketchbook.

Another sketch with the tinted charcoal is here

Digital image: Twilight woods

2011-12-30T13:51:00.001Z

Twilight Woods. Digital image

A complex mix of various of the samples done with the Derwent pencils and ink sketches. This doesn't exist anywhere but in the computer - I do like tangled undergrowth like this and did a whole series of work on the theme in my final year of my degree - something I'd like to work on again a little. On big canvasses. And maybe focussing in on details as below:

I'm making no New Year resolutions other than to go with the flow :>)

merry christmas

2011-12-24T15:47:00.001Z

Merry Christmas

A Christmas doodle in Derwent metallic pencils on their black sketch pad - yes another with the items they sent me ::>) I'm having fun working my way through their products :>) at the moment all is in a trying-it-out-in-small-things-stage - I'll manage some larger works after Christmas.

City Lights: night time sketch on black paper in mixed media

2011-12-19T09:53:00.000Z

Lone figure, city night sketch, December, inktense, coloured pencil and white gouache on black paper, A5 ish

I've been meaning to try doing some sketches of the city at night for a long time. I'm constantly looking at the lights vs the pools of darkness, mysterious shapes and often a feeling of loneliness and emptiness out there, as I drive.

This is a first attempt. It's not a subject I've tackled before - but it's about the same thing that normally interests me - light, lost edges, a sense of place. It's in a Derwent black sketch pad - another item they kindly sent me :>) Coloured pencil sinks and loses intensity on black paper - but that's just what I needed to catch the sheen of light on the road, paths and buildings. the black paper flickering through the colour, helping to create the feel of light reflections over a dark surface. The reflected light on these surfaces is made up of multiple layers of scribbled marks in different colours of pencil.

I started off with Inktense blocks, using water to create washes of muted colour. These were intensified by scribbles of dry Inktense and Artists coloured pencils.

It needed more light, which I was never going to build with pencils alone, so I put down Winsor and Newton white designers gouache where I needed more intense brightness, working over it when it dried with further inktense pencils and coloured pencil scribbles. This gouache is so useful for regaining lights, mixed with watercolour it will give an infinite variety of pale colours to reclaim overworked dark areas or create a light opaque cover for this black paper. Used dry, the inktense gave a stronger cover of colour than the coloured pencils.

The lone figure is simply the black paper itself, outlined in brightness.

Mixing media in this way gave me the marks and colour intensity that I needed.

It would be interesting to do some more of these, larger and better. This was just a sketch, an experiment to find out how materials behaved and what I'd need to do to get the intense contrasts and the areas lost in darkness.

Review - Derwent Studio pencils: testing, drawing feathers, seascapes and illustration and Derwent A3 sketchbook

2011-12-18T01:13:00.005Z

Feathers, Derwent Studio pencils, approximately 7 inches square

detail

Derwent have given me some of their products to experiment with and review, so I'm like a child in a sweetie shop. :>)

Some I have used for a long time but some are new to me. I remember as a very small child visiting their pencil museum and my father explaining how 'lead' pencils were actually graphite - and owning coloured pencils made by them. In those days obviously just the basic range - not the artists ones I choose now.

I can't remember a time when I didn't draw. One of my earliest memories is posting scribbled 'letters' to my father when I was 18 months old and he was away in Gibraltar with the RAF.

Here I've been taking a look at their Studio coloured pencils

The above study of feathers was done with a limited range of colours - unfortunately scanners and cameras find pale colours impossible - the wash of greeny bronze behind the feathers is made up of yellow, green and orange hatched and softly laid over each other and is much smoother than appears above. I think the problem with scanning is partly due to the tonal range I use, with intense darks through to very pale colour. Scanning at 600dpi does help a bit as does adjusting in Photoshop but the palest drifts of colour simply will not register correctly :>(

The pencils were perfect for this sort of study, it was easy to get fine details and the colours layered beautifully. I'll definitely be using them again for this sort of close up study of objects and textures.

I tend to do these sort of studies when curled in an armchair, half watching TV or listening to music - using paint isn't practical in that situation (I've got into enough trouble with himself over the years for gettting paint on clothes, carpets furniture .....) Coloured pencils and watercolour pencils with a waterbrush keep me out of trouble and enable me to work on ideas in my armchair, which I can develop further in paint later, or can be something in their own right, Paintings are done elsewhere to avoid the divorce court :>)

I used an A3 hardback, wirebound sketch book. with good, quite heavy paper (110lb). The paper is really lovely to use for both wet and dry media, taking any amount of layering, drawing back into with an eraser and embossing, to leave white lines through overlaid pencil. For me the 75lb is too light for the way I like to work - this one is absolutely ideal and A3 is a great size for taking out plein air, allowing more space to work in - an A4 or smaller can feel very cramped if you like to work with sweeping lines and washes of colour. I also really like the elastic closure, which protects work in storage or in transit, keeping pages tightly and neatly closed.

I had previously owned one single pencil of this range! which I loved for its glorious colour and feel, used over watercolour - the perfect viridian/jade to enhance the glow in the sea in the shallows in Cornwall, I frequently use coloured pencil this way and this one features frequently in my seascapes - from slight touches to more intense use, enhancing and adjusting colour and tone in paintings. It is used in the examples from my sketchbooks below (previously shown on the blog as they were done) which are watercolours with touches of coloured pencil (the single viridian Studio pencil I owned, featuring strongly in that gloriously coloured shallower water) along with touches of pen and oil pastel:

plein air sketches in 12 inch Canson sketchbook - double page spread is 24 inches across - detail below

And again, over watercolour in some of the illustrations for the abc book - for instance in the background to this page in the book I've made this year for my grandson, who is learning to read and my grandaughter who, at nearly 12 months, will simply look at colours and shapes and listen to the repeated sounds of the letters. Again, the solitary, deliciously coloured viridian/jade studio pencil was used, over washes of a pthalo blue and green mix watercolour. This time to intensify the colour brightness and add a little opacity without being as flat and even as gouache.

Below is a scribble where the left hand side is simply watercolour pencil very roughly scribbled and washed out - and on the left, hazes of viridian and turquoise pencil are built up to intensify the colour. Many years ago, gifted artist John Lidzey was the first I was aware of who used this technique of coloured pencil over watercolour, encouraging me to experiment with the combination. It's something I've used frequenly ever since.

doodles/illustration, pencils over watercolour pencil washes and scribbles over embossing

I used the embossing tool from a set of drawing tools, to 'draw' the spirals into the paper - the coloured pencil doesn't reach into the dips, allowing interesting possibilities - like whiskers on animals, pale hair that overlaps darker hair - or simply pattern as above. It needs more investigation as I work my way onwards :>) - I frequently draw through wet watercolour with the wrong end of a paintbrush, damaging/indenting the surface of the paper a little, making the paint a deeper tone along the fine line created - this tool could be useful used in that way I think - something to try anyway.

The colours can be rich and intense, as in the snowman illustration, or soft and subtle, mixing in dense layers or hatched layers of different colours, allowing optical mixing - see work by Katherine Tyrrell who uses this method. I can see these pencils becoming a favourite and I know Katherine enjoyed using them.

The colours are the same as the Artists Range, enabling them to be combined - something I have yet to try

Have you used these? what do you think?

editing images: lost edges and contrast

2011-12-13T12:27:00.000Z

Mawgan Porth, Moonrise, coloured pencil and gouache on a deep buff paper

Originally the cliff top showed more clearly against the dark clouds, paler. It jarred, I didn't like it, so I sat down to create a lost edge - the cliff top edge barely visible against the dark cloud. I like it better. This is another in that sketchbook with the deep buff paper - you can see it in places in this and the other images.

I also added a little white gouache to enhance the gleam on the water, moved the moon (with the flick of my hand!), added a ring around the moon and I'm happier with it now..

The clouds haven't scanned well - they are softer with more subtleties and changes of colour than is picked up here. I think it's finished.

details:

amending past images, editing, reviewing and changing drastically : The bend in the river, coloured pencil and white gouache

2011-12-12T17:00:00.000Z

The Bend. Coloured pencil and white gouache

This one was once a loud abstracted landscape, where I'd simply played with colour and the composition was frankly bad! There was only a small distant patch of water in it, a lot more high foreground, looking downhill and the composition, viewpoint and subject were very different. It wasn't something I wanted to keep but sat there - luridly - in my sketchbook.   The original and this were both just totally imaginary landscapes, based on a mix of visual memories. I can't find a photo of the original - but you aren't missing anything!

It's in that sketchbook with a deep buff coloured paper, a gift from a friend in the US. Luckily the paper is strong and can take a lot of rough treatment.

I used a mix of Jakar and Derwent electric erasers to 'draw' back into it, creating those paler trees, against a dark background, darkening the background further and simplifying, taking out the distant dry reeds/hay, which is the colour of the paper; creating a swathe of water by using white gouache and darkening sections, leaving other sections with traces of previous marks left as reflections and finally adding the foreground reeds.

Sometimes an image just needs changing - drastically :>)

The Derwent eraser takes out a wider mark than the Jakar - so having the 2 enables a wider range of mark making for me.   I really like to draw with an eraser through charcoal or pencils. It allows a whole range of different expressive marks.

Amending and editing old sketches: Clovelly, Devon, in coloured pencil

2011-12-10T16:33:00.001Z

Clovelly Harbour, Misty Summer Day, coloured pencil and white gouache

I was looking at this sketchbook with buff paper, thinking of working in it. Instead I edited the 3 images in there. I'd never been quite happy with them due to the whites being dull, making the whole image dull. White pencils are very disappointing when used on coloured paper I find - I'd used 3 different brands in trying to get the whites brighter.

I used a little white gouache, drybrushed where I wanted a gleam in the water, scrubbed a little into part of the wall of the house (but not all over) and used the small colour shaper tool that came in a set of Derwent tools to apply thin drawn lines of gouache for the edges of the waves.

I'm much happier with it now. This is also a better scan, bringing out the colours in the stone wall at the front and the water colour is more like the original. Maybe it's having that white there to help it get the white balance to scan accurately?

the images side by side

Doodling with Graphitints

2011-12-09T16:09:00.001Z

Winter trees, approaching rain, Graphitints

I was experimenting with water soluble Graphitints, which I've never used before. The colours were perfect for the wintry weather we have at the moment. This is looking out across the fields in that wonderful light you get when it's sunny where you are - but ahead is a deep dark threatening sky - such a wonderful mix.

I liked the ability to create washes with these and also use them dry and the colours mixed well. Drawing through a wet wash created stronger marks. I want to get out more with these during the winter.

Review: Derwent Aquatones used with their waterbrush, a sketch of Cornish rocks and sea

2011-12-04T15:24:00.000Z

A quick sketch of the rocks and sea in Cornwall (from previous plein air work) to experiment with the Derwent Aquatones. In A4 sketchbook.

Derwent Aquatones:

An early Christmas gift :>) - I wanted to experiment with the Aquatones and see what was possible as I hadn't used these before. They are a pencil made of solid pigment with a coating of paint to keep hands clean They feel harder in use than the watercolour pencils and don't provide such a strong colour whilst dry but colour still washes richly out when they are wet.   I found that the same scribble and pressure gave richer colour on the 110lb paper - the 75lb needing more pencil application or layers built up to achieve rich colour (the sketchbook reviewed in the previous post).

Colours mix well on the paper - something I need them to do.   Drawing back into wet washes made nice marks.   It is easy to wash out marks entirely (on heavier paper) or deliberately leave marks showing with only a light sweep of a wet paintbrush.   I like the capability to leave lines showing, taking only a light sweep across with water sometimes. Lines and marks are important in the way I work.

It is also possible to lift pigment directly from the pencil with a brush, which results in rich sweeps of colour, which can be glazed over previous layers. Drawing across damp paper gives a rich line, that gels with the underlying colours in a satisfying way, the edges softening slightly, depending on the wetness of the paper.

I will happily sketch with these plein air. :>0

Waterbrushes:

The sketch above was done with a waterbrush - again something I haven't used before as I'd imagined that changing colours during painting, would result in muddiness -,with contamination from previous colour.   It amazingly, wipes clean in a second on a tissue or rag, ready for the next colour.   Even yellow wasn't contaminated at all.

I can see me taking this out regularly in a small sketching kit, where I don't want to carry too much.

I wouldn't use it in larger work as I like to use larger brushes.    It's a very useful tool for smaller sketchs - for A4 and below it would be part of a great minimalist sketch kit with water soluble graphite pencils or ink, the waterbrush and a sketchbook - lots of expressive tonal marks would be possible.   To see a sketch done with liquid graphite and a waterbrush that I was lucky enough to receive in the Postcard Exchange, click here.

I'd love Derwent to make a size 12 or larger waterbrush. I know the reservoir would need to be bigger but it would open up so much more opportunity to use it. Maybe a half inch flat too? Please Derwent?

Have you used either of these?

Review: Derwent 75lb hardback sketchbook , sketch of sea and rocks in Cornwall - added further media to Jan 2012

2011-12-03T15:04:00.002Z

edited 4.1.11 additional work in carbon pencil, ink, watersoluble graphite and more ........

Water soluble graphite and graphite pencil

Near Porthgwarra, Derwent Aquatone pencils in Derwent 75lb A4 sketchbook

Back to painting and sketching - and testing out some early Christmas gifts.   First of all is an A4 75lb hardback using a set of 24 Aquatone pencils and a waterbrush.   I'll do a review of the pencils and brush another day.

I revisited my plein air sketchbooks and previous subjects of paintings, so that I could compare the variety of marks possible with work already existing, the depth of colour achievable, the ability to glaze colour and to achieve the translucency of water and colour mixing that happens in the painting, that I want.

Sorry if you are tired, seeing Porthgwarra again! - it's just a very suitable subject for the problem solving that I wanted to test these items against. The changing colour of sea and sky, the water over the rocks, the grassy clifftop against the sea etc

The 75lb paper weight sketchbook:

75lb is a lighter weight of paper than I normally use - I have the 110lb in an A3 and love it.   This lighter weight did cause a few problems when testing if I let the paper get too wet - but in fairness it stood up to the wet very well considering it isn't designed for this use.

The Aquatone needed more layers of scribbling to build colour - whereas colour builds up instantly on the heavier paper, enabling me to work faster. Interestingly, the Derwent watercolour pencils that I have, built up very nearly the same density of colour with the same pressure on 75lb and 110lb paper - though marks didn't wash out as cleanly on the lighter weight paper.   This doesn't always matter to me as the marks are part of my process. .

The scratchiness of a Rotring pen + water to create washes did result in the ink going through the page. This isn't something I use regularly but I would definitely use the 110lb book when working with it in the future.

I would keep this book mainly for sketching with dry media - it took charcoal, pencil, coloured pencil and hard pastel well.

I wouldn't rule out 'wet' media entirely though.   With care, and not over-wetting the paper, it coped surprisingly well with Aquatone, watercolour pencils and watersoluble graphite.

I did go through the page once in one sketch because I worked too much on a section that was pretty soggy but that was my own impatience! The paper flattened out and is repaired with a patch on the back and is barely discernable now dry (hidden by surf) :>). Overall the Aquatones behaved surprisingly well on this thinner paper but working seriously plein air I'd take the A3 book of heavier paper - a size and weight I prefer to work with.

Some people regard an A4 book as their large one, so they would be very happy with the size. I often work in an A4 but I really do like the extra space of an A3 or A2 for the room to make gestural marks and use masses of colour.

With hardback books you have the ability to work on double page spreads, something I like to do - with thinner paper it pays not to work on the back of these in case work shows through. I usually put a big pencil cross across the page so that I don't accidentally work on it.   I do this in any book really even if the paper is heavy.   I don't want to end up with 2 paintings/drawings I want to frame that are back to back!

The pages are perforated for easy removal - something I don't actually want in a hardback book but for those wanting to take out pages for framing, it makes removal easy.

All in all a nice book though I prefer the 110lb version because I use a lot of water based media.

I'll write about the Aquatones and waterbrush another day - soon.

The ABC's are almost printed and just need to be bound .   If you want to see the illustrations to Z look on the tabs at the top of the blog and you can see them all together.   I'm looking at the possibility of making a Blurb book or one of those that you make with Amazon or Barnes and Noble - I need to do the research and see what is possible.

EDIT: January 2012 additional media tested - I'll look at each of these media separately in later posts, but for now, this is how they behave on the thin paper

I've now had chance to play with more media in this book - examples below.    Though I much prefer the heavier weight sketchbooks in the Derwent range for my own use, I have to say this is holding up surprisingly well to a variety of media.

here a doodle with a Wolff carbon pencil

Rotring pen and wash

The Lamy pen I have, despite being cleaned and having all sorts done to it, insists on drying after a tiny amount of drawing and bleeds through the paper .......... and is totally useless and will be binned! My ancient, neglected Rotring Art Pen working infinitely better and doesn't soak through to the next page.

Dertwent watersoluble graphite pencil (medium)

Derwent water soluble graphite (dark) with wax resist stick used for retaining white of waves

Derwent watersoluble Graphitone pencil

Rotring Art Penwith Derwent Inktense pencils (watersoluble and waterproof when dry)

Tombow pen and wash

Aquatone water soluble pencil

Derwent Graphitint, water soluble tinted graphite pencils

sketch using the pencils in the Drawing Pencils tin by Derwent (Tame and wild tin) - the range of colours is shown in the scribbles at the top of the page

Derwent Tinted charcoal

Illustrated ABC for Lucy, childrens book K and L and a new page for this book

2011-11-30T15:52:00.002Z

I've finished illustrating up to Z - so now the covers and then putting the book together in Publisher, printing and binding - nearly done!

I'm putting the illustrations together on a page - see the tabs at the top of the blog as those not interested in illustration may be getting thoroughly bored with these :>) So A-Z is uploaded there. Covers to follow.

And hopefully some 'serious' painting time soon.

abc for lucy - illustrated alphabet I and J

2011-11-29T15:43:00.000Z

|Onwards ............

abc illustrated book - g and h

2011-11-27T20:56:00.001Z

The book continues - I've just realised I made changes to the G page and forgot to re-write the word giraffe.

It's taking a lot of time but today and yesterday I had time off - family visits and then simply chilling and curling up with a book :>)

abc for Lucy - illustrated book

2011-11-25T16:02:00.000Z

and F - I did have a union jack there but it was too fussy, so simplified it to the cross of St George.

The end is in view ......

illustrations for abc book: E

2011-11-24T05:46:00.000Z

And E

abc book illustrations up to D

2011-11-23T13:00:00.000Z

It's flowing faster at the moment - I'm actually up to K in colour and M sketched out and ready to paint ......

abc book illustrations continued

2011-11-21T23:17:00.001Z

Another page almost done.

illustrating a book for a small child continued - abc for Lucy

2011-11-19T15:13:00.000Z

Now on to B - so many more to go and so little time!

and the original with the print and added text - with typo - it should say big banana not bit!

Only 24 more letters to go plus the covers, plus the putting it together with the writing in Publisher, plus the printing, plus the binding ..... no pressure then.

And the original rough ideas sketch

An ABC book for a small child - continued

2011-11-18T17:08:00.001Z

I spent some time working on the illustrations for the book for my grandaughter, for Christmas, today. It's a mix of watercolour, pen and coloured pencil. And I suddenly realised the rate at which I've got to work to get 26 letters plus covers, plus put the book together in time ..... I think I'd better get on with it quickly!

I think primary teachers will frown at some of the phonics - like the aeroplane and auntie C. Some of the words like avaricious are aimed at brother Sam, who is very articulate and will enjoy the big words. I wanted to bring in lots of family things and thinking up enough items for the letters isn't the easiest!

This is the A4 sketchbook with the original sketch below and above is a trial print of the page as it will appear with added text.

You may be interested in the working out ideas sketches here and here . Other illustration projects can be found by searching under the tag Illustration.

A sketch still to be developed.

Back to work ...........

Framing - what frame to choose?

2011-11-16T12:53:00.001Z

Pollarded willows, charcoal and pastel in limed ash frame or black frame, framed it's about 3ft

Selecting frames is difficult.   The frame can make or break a picture - but it also has to fit in with a buyers house.

I notice this makes for a huge difference in opinions on framing between the US, UK and the continent when discussing framing with friends. American friends always seem to go for dark dark wood, continental friends like more ornate frames, in England we tend to go for pale, minimalist framing - it so much depends on the surroundings in which they are to be hung as well as the image itself.

Originally I had framed the piece above in limed ash with an antique white (pale cream) mat/mount but wasn't at all happy with it. I hadn't thought enough about it. The drawing has a lot of darks with compressed charcoal as well as deep colour, is 'heavy' and the frame didn't stand up to it, seeming too pale and insubstantial. The pale limed ash, paler than in the photo, didn't echo anything in the image or match it's mood, which is does with the seascapes I do. I made the decision to go with black for the recent exhibition and liked it much better - it played up the drama of the winter light.

The limed ash goes really well with the seascapes, as does white. It's very easy to feel that framing must 'match' when hung together, no matter what the painting.   Sometimes it's necessary to break away into something totally different for the paintings sake.

I think I'll definitely be using black again where it enhances colour and makes it sing against the darkness.   What I'll do in future is limit framing to mainly the limed ash, black or white so that there aren't too many different elements going on.

I experimented with a black frame, digitally, for the recent still life and like the effect of black with the rich colour, enhancing the glow - one of the reasons I like black as the background to my blog.

Frames need to enhance the image and not compete. A frame that is too fancy or brightly coloured can mean that you are looking at the frame more than the image.

What do you think? What influences your framing? How do you frame?