Monthly Archives: November 2011

Having fun with your old paintings

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What do you do with those old paintings that end up in a mess and clearly have not worked? Turn them into paper darts? Use the backs for another painting? Frame them and give them to your least favourite aunt for Christmas? Whatever you do, don’t tear them up or throw them away as they are more valuable than you may imagine.

If you keep your old ‘failures’ in a folder the time will come when you will find them extremely useful to practice techniques. In this scene of Tideswell Moor in the English Peak District you will see a dark cloud on the left with a rain squall beneath it. This was achieved with a glaze – a transparent wash laid over an already-painted part of the composition, once it had completely dried. In this case it was done by wetting the paper first so that a soft edge would be achieved on the falling ‘rain’.

Most inexperienced artists find this glaze technique rather daunting, and of course it is easy to mess up an otherwise competent painting. In order to gain practice with this technique there is nothing better than to do it on your old ‘failed’ paintings. You have nothing to lose and you might end up with a really good painting after all. The glaze method can be useful for warming up or cooling down a painting or an area within that painting, or for creating shadow or falling rain as in this case where you wish to suggest a film of atmosphere in between the viewer and part of the composition. Have fun with your old paintings!

Getting out of a rut – Misty marsh in Pan Pastel

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Misty marsh in Pan Pastel

Misty marsh in Pan Pastel

The inspiration for a painting can come in many shapes and forms but most frequently it is a combination of atmosphere and light that sparks the fire.

The sparkle of light on water and a gauze of mist lends enchantment to almost any scene.

In this painting the misty effect was achieved with Pan Pastels on a sheet of white Clairefontaine Pastel Mat paper.

The method of applying the Pan Pastel colour with sponges naturally lends itself to soft edges. The water is mainly the paper left untouched but the highlights on the clouds were created with a small Sofft

tm tool which looks like a plastic palette knife with a sponge sleeve and is very effective for smaller areas.

The challenge of working with Pan Pastels, which does not lend itself readily to creating sharp edges, has made me re-evaluate the amount of fine detail I include in a painting and has ‘loosened up’ my recent work. Working with different methods of applying colour is a stimulus that can get you out of a rut.

Go on try something new.

I will be running a pastel painting course in Cheddar next autumn if you would like to learn more about my methods of working.

Critical observation

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When I talk about sketching outdoors I am well aware that so many artists lose interest – they prefer to stay indoors, warm and comfortable and work from photographs, books, calendars and so on. ‘Sketching’ is a dirty word to many, although for me it is one of the most rewarding things I do. Still, for those of you who don’t wish to venture beyond your front door, you can still learn a lot by critical observation.

This exciting picture was taken in my hotel bedroom last week in London, and if you look carefully you will observe a number of subtle effects concerned with direct and reflected light. The main light is entering through a window to the right, illuminating the right-hand wall and the right-hand edge of the door architrave in the centre, but where this is blocked by an object in the top right-hand corner the most powerful light there comes from the light bulb above the top left-hand corner.

If you look carefully you should be able to see a slight lightening of the vertical thin strip of wall in the centre where reflected light is bouncing back from the illuminated architrave.  Again, at the bottom of the scene you can see further counterchange on wall and architrave caused by a table in the bottom right-hand corner.

Simple scenes like this can provide an excellent idea of how light affects various surfaces and angles. You can observe these effects without having to go out into hostile terrain, or the need to do any sketching. Make it a habit whether you are indoors, outdoors, or sitting in a rickshaw waiting for the traffic lights to change.

In the December issue of Leisure Painter magazine you will find a complete article I wrote on the subject of observation, and I have a further piece on-line at http://www.painters-online.co.uk/  Critical observation like this can also while away the time as you wait for a train or whatever, and it can be great fun!

Sketching and drawing with watersoluble pencils

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This post is in response to Michael Bailey’s comments about the Karisma aquarelle pencils – marvellous watersoluble pencils that were so useful for sketching in all weathers as you can lay on the pencil tone and brush water across it to create lovely washes in various degrees of tone. They enabled you to create lovely, moody pencil sketches and drawings.

The rough sketch on the left was done with a medium Karisma pencil many years ago. It shows an ice cave in the Argentiere glacier, with great blocks of ice fallen by the entrance, and gives a fair idea of the variety of tones you can achieve with a watersoluble graphite pencil. You can clearly see the vertical pencil hatching on the side of the large horizontal ice slab where it has not quite washed out.

When the Karisma range sadly disappeared off our art-shop shelves we looked around for a replacement, and after some experiments found the Caran D’Ache Technalo range to be a good alternative. Like Karisma, the Technalo watersoluble pencils come in a range of three: HB, B and 3B, to give you a light, medium and dark tone.

Thanks for your kind comments, Michael – I hope this helps. I don’t, by the way, normally use these pencils with watercolours to produce paintings as some graphite will always wash off and muddy up the colour, although I have used them as an exercise in one of my earlier books to show tone and then applied light washes to help illustrate a point. They are excellent tools for learning about tones.

Eilean Donan Castle as a watercolour monochrome painting

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Many inexperienced artists find that coming to terms with tones, colour mixing and the myriads of other complications with watercolour painting is so overwhelming that they almost feel like giving up. If you suffer from this syndrome then try working in monochrome for a while. This will greatly improve your tonal evaluation and get you back on the rails once more.

By using just one colour throughout the painting you can concentrate on getting the tones right and not have to concern yourself with any of that nasty colour mixing that confounds so many. As usual, build up the watercolour starting with the lightest tones and gradually bringing in the darker ones. Try a dark colour such as indigo, Payne’s grey, burnt umber or warm sepia, though I have to be in a truly bad mood to use the latter as it’s such a depressing colour.

The painting shown above shows the Eilean Donan castle in the Western Highlands of Scotland, which was featured in one of my very early books. It was carried out on tinted paper and is a lovely example of creating a landscape composition without resorting to colour. Monochrome also has the advantage of creating a sense of unity and mood. After a few monochromes try adding a second colour, gradually bringing in more colours once you feel more confident.

There is a useful section on monochrome painting in my paperback Learn to Paint Watercolour Landscapes available from http://davidbellamy.co.uk/