Category Archives: David Bellamy

Blog Posts by the artist David Bellamy

Painting the magic of snow scenes

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We’re still waiting for our first fall of snow in mid-Powys – it seems to be taking a long time to get here this winter. For the artist, the landscape is transformed by a coating of snow, making it an exciting time to be out sketching. The manner in which the scenery is simplified, with much detail hidden, will help those less experienced artists who find it difficult to filter out unwanted clutter.

This watercolour shows a lonely farm on Tideswell Moor in Derbyshire, where you can find many similar compositions, at times without even needing to get out of your car! While it’s tempting to think of snow as being white, the snow as we see it varies considerably in tone, sometimes appearing almost black when in deep shadow and backlit by strong sunshine. If you wish to push a snowy hill or mountain back into the distance lay a weak wash of blue or blue-grey over it, as you can see on the right-hand distant hill where I used cobalt blue. By comparison the left-hand hill, which is simply the white of the paper, really does come forward. To accentuate the white roof I’ve set it against a mid-tone background: planning your tones like this is easy with some forethought before starting to paint.
Don’t just use blue over the snow areas. Watch out for reflected colours in the snow – pinks, yellows, mauves – these can really give your painting a lift, and also note where the snow cover is quite thin some of the vegetation might well show through. A good example of this is where large bands of grass are visible, where I might wash a warm colour such as yellow ochre or light red over the paper. For this, the dry brush technique where you have a large brush with little water on it, is extremely effective, especially on a rough paper surface.
This painting is featured in my book Painting Wild Landscapes in Watercolour, and for details of a special book and dvd offer see my our shop. Our website will shortly be upgraded, as it is starting to creak a bit of old age. In the meantime, Jenny and I wish you all a very Happy Christmas wherever you live in the world, and may you have a very rewarding year of painting ahead of you. We’re now about to set off to the local cinema and I’ve been warned to take waders and carry a life raft as the waters of the Wye are rising rapidly.

Watercolour painting blocks

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Jenny and I have been in Paris on a short break to see my daughter, and we were blessed with glorious sunny weather. This enabled us not only to have a very enjoyable time, but for me to do the occasional sketch during our pauses. There’s usually some time during the day, even in a place as busy as Paris, to spend a few moments recording a scene, and it makes a lovely souvenir of the trip.

As I’ve mentioned before, we often produce an illustrated journal from our travels, but sometimes it’s nice to carry out a watercolour on proper watercolour paper, even if it is more in sketch form than a completed painting. I nearly always take a folder with a variety of watercolour papers, NOT, rough, hot pressed, tinted, and so on, on my serious trips, but often it’s great to keep things simple and just take along your favourite watercolour paper. We should all have favourites, so if you haven’t you really should try to find out which papers suit you best.

For me the real star is Saunders Waterford, as it has an interesting surface texture combined with a truly robust nature, because it has been internally and externally sized. This can be an absolutely vital attribute if like me you make mistakes and need to sponge or scratch the paper to remove mistakes, or indeed, as a technique for creating certain effects.

St Cuthberts Mill produce the Saunders Waterford blocks containing their classic watercolour paper in convenient sizes for all three surface types, and they are ideal for painting while you travel, or if you don’t like stretching paper. It’s a great pleasure to work on really superb paper, so if you haven’t tried Waterford you are in for a treat. Check out their website

Terror of the Trolls

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This week sees the launch of my latest book, Terror of the Trolls, the second book in the Llandoddie series based in the spa town of Llandrindod Wells in Mid Wales. As in the first volume, this one is peppered with chaos, mad-cap humour and dire peril in the form of a band of disgusting trolls who think nothing of eating the smaller Doddies for breakfast. Or afternoon tea.

Little Rhiannon is kidnapped by the trolls, and is whisked away into the sinister dark depths of the Pwll-du mine. A crack Doddie rescue team is sent in, equipped with the latest weaponry produced by Professor Megawattie, such as his exploding hedgehog. “It’s perfectly safe,” he boasts, but is it? All the main characters from the first book, The Grog Invasion, are back, with Big Dewi in splendid form as the anti-hero, making a pig’s ear of just about everything.

Written for children from 9 to 99, the book has 27 illustrations, mainly in colour, 128 pages, is written under my pseudonym, and copies signed by old Griswallt are available from my shop – it makes a suitably terrifying Christmas present.

Pen and Wash Method

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    Many people find watercolour difficult to control – in fact, most of us do at times, and it can be especially frustrating for those folk who enjoy and are good at drawing, but want to turn their drawings into watercolours. One excellent method of achieving this is to use the wash and line technique, where you draw the image in ink – laying down a preliminary pencil drawing if you are not confident to begin straight away with the pen – and then lay watercolour washes over the image.

    In this scene of a fishing boat I began with a fine fibre-tipped pen, drawing in the boat, ropes, bird and beach features, then once the outline was complete I worked in the tones by hatching with the pen, more intense in places, such as the underside of the craft, mainly by drawing the hatching lines closer together. When all this was done I washed colour over the image, weak washes, as the tone was already there, apart from the sky and one or two other parts. Pens are not especially good for creating interesting atmospheric skies, so I did use the wet-in-wet technique to include clouds and a darkened lower sky, but it could have been left as a plain weak wash, and the same applies to the beach. On the cabin I did lay a medium-toned blue-grey wash for the shadow side, although I could have hatched it lightly with the pen.

    Of course, you can simply do the drawing without any hatching and then lay washes in the usual way, mixing darker tones where needed, so there is much scope for variation with wash and line. Some prefer to lay washes first and then draw with the pen, a very effective exercise when the work has gone slightly awry! This was actually a sketch done on smooth cartridge paper, but you might like to try it out on hot pressed watercolour paper.

    The scene is taken from my book, Skies, Light & Atmosphere, recently published in the USA, and we are doing a special offer with the DVD of the same title on our website. The DVD is only available from us and all details are available on the site. ….and don’t forget to have a go at the pen and wash!

Stretching watercolour paper

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Do you stretch your watercolour paper? This can be an exasperating process for many artists, and although it can be avoided by working on the thick 300lb paper, or even 200lb if you don’t flood it with water, these heavier papers are of course more expensive. Watercolour blocks are another alternative, and are extremely useful if you are travelling, but again they are more expensive when compared to sheets.

In the photograph I’m discussing a point during a demonstration, and using 300lb paper held to the board with two clips, as it is essential to keep the paper firmly in position. In the studio I normally use stretched 140lb paper. Firstly I cut four strips of gummed tape to correspond in length with the edges of the paper. Then I immerse the paper completely in water for not more than 15 to 20 seconds. If you leave it in water too long there is a danger that it will tear the tape away from the board. I then hold the paper by one corner and allow the water to drain off before laying it flat on the drawing board, before wetting each gummed strip in turn and sticking it down over one edge of the paper. Finally I lay the board flat and leave it to dry out completely before using it.
Every art tutor will give you a different formula for stretching paper, and if one method doesn’t work for you after several attempts then try someone else’s recipe. Alternatively you can buy stretchers for the purpose, but you are then limited to certain sizes, and if like me you have many boards stretched at once this may not be to your liking. Depending on the amount of water you use, as well as the paper itself, you may find it still cockling with really fluid washes, even though you have stretched it well. Some papers are more prone to this, but good paper like Waterford, Bockingford and Fabriano should not give you any problems. Worst of all, perhaps, is de Wint tinted paper, which can rise up to half an inch off the board, even after stretching. However, you won’t have any problems with it, as it’s no longer available! Further advice on stretching can be found in my Watercolour Landscape Course book, which is available on my website.