Stage 2 & 3 of my competition entry

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Yesterday I made more progress on my painting for the Cox & Kings Morocco competition: Stage 2 – Sky: When painting landscapes, I generally work from the top of a painting downwards. This serves two purposes. Firstly it helps prevent the heel of your hand smudging the work where it rests on the support and secondly it helps create a sense of recession. If you think of the landscape in terms of distance, the objects farthest away are usually lighter in tone, cooler in colour and less distinct. Translating this into the painting process means that you use paler, cooler colours in the distance and less detail. By working down the support you can remember that meme in your choice of colour and tone.

morocco stage2

Stage 2 – Sky

Stage 3 – The mountains: The sky was painted down over the drawn lines that defined the mountain tops. This is to ensure that there are no gaps between the sky and mountains and also to give the impression that the sky is, in effect, behind the mountains. Sticking to cooler colours and pale tones, the mountains are painted with sharp edges in places and softer edges in others so that there is not a hard line all the way across the painting. Soft edged cloud shadows helps define the ridges.

morocco stage3csm (1)

Stage 3 – the mountains

The next step will be coming soon.

Stage 1 of my competition entry

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In my last post I undertook to keep you up to date with the progress of my competition entry for the Cox & Kings Morocco Art competition. I discussed some of my first thoughts on the treatment of the subject in the previous post and as you can see from the initial drawing I have moved the small building on the right towards the centre a little and given it more prominence so that it will act as a focal point.

Stage 1 - initial drawing

Stage 1 – initial drawing

My next consideration will be the treatment of the sky which will set the mood of the whole painting. The atmosphere in the photograph hardly needs changing but I need to simplify the clouds and to reduce the prominence of the distant mountain range which could form a strong line across the painting if I am not careful. I also want to make the most of the cloud shadow on the low hills in the middle distance to emphasize the building.

I will post the next step in a few days.

Back in the Saddle

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As many of you know, this summer I have been recovering from an operation. I am doing really well now and almost back to normal. I want to thank you all for your kind wishes over the past months. Unfortunately, my painting has been sadly neglected during this time but I can feel the stirrings of inspiration starting again and the autumn colours are tempting me out to sketch.

Fortuitously, only a week ago, I was invited by Cox & Kings to take part in their Morocco Art competition along with four other artists and this has given me the impetus I need to get painting again. I travelled to Morocco with David in 1993 and was captivated by the sumptuous colour in Marrakesh, the fascinating culture of the Berber tribes, the architecture, from Mosaic Palaces to mud brick dwellings, and the magnificent mountain scenery of the Atlas Mountains.  Really looking forward to a chance to win one of Cox & Kings’ Morocco holidays.

So where to begin? I have chosen the scene below of the Atlas Mountains with a scattering of buildings. The first step is to start planning my treatment of the subject. My initial thoughts are that the atmosphere and colour of the photograph below will hardly need any adjustment but I want to bring the low building on the right more towards the centre of the painting to make a more satisfying composition and to provide me with a focal point. I have not started on the painting yet so I will post some of the stages as I proceed, so that you can share the experience with me. This is a high risk strategy for my reputation and if it all goes horribly wrong you will, hopefully, be encouraged to take risks with your own painting.

Errachidia, Morocco

Errachidia, Morocco (Photo)

I will post the first stage soon. I wish my fellow competition entrants, Concetta Perôt, Alan Reed, Vandy Massey and Kim Dellow, good luck.

David Bellamy – Painting in harbours

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Harbours and moorings are often not the easiest places to sketch and paint when you find a mass of boats, masts and other nautical paraphernalia confronting you. How can you work out which mast is attached to which craft, and is that an oversized cabin or a bouncy castle in the distance – this can be especially difficult to work out in poor lighting.
Heybridge Basin
This is part of a watercolour painting of Heybridge Basin in Essex. There were many more boats than I’ve shown, but I’ve eliminated much of the visual clutter, concentrating on the more handsome vessels. This is the best way of avoiding the effect of a jungle of massed detail. When you want to identify the important and most attractive boats it helps to move around and sketch and photograph from slightly different angles. This helps to see which feature belongs to which boat. A pair of binoculars can help if you are some distance away, and watch for changes of light which can give further clues.

In your rendering of the scene try to keep the background fairly simple, otherwise too much detail will confuse the composition. Harbours can be notorious places for strong background features that can
dominate if you are not careful. In this scene I have kept the background trees devoid of any detail so that the emphasis is on the boats.

You can see the whole of this painting in my exhibition at Lincoln Joyce Fine Art, at 40 Church Road, Great Bookham, in Surrey telephone 01372 458481. The exhibition continues until 9th November and is open 10am to 5 pm, Tuesday to Saturday. There are more details on my website.

David Bellamy – Improving the sky in a watercolour

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On Tuesday 22nd October my exhibition opens at Lincoln Joyce Fine Art in Great Bookham. The watercolours cover a wide range of subjects, from mountains and pastoral scenery to coastal scenes. It’s many years since I featured any of the lovely old sailing barges in a collection, so I’m pleased to say that I’ve included some in this one.

Blackwater Mooring

The image shows a barge moored on the Blackwater near Heybridge Basin: the original sketch was carried out on a really gloomy afternoon not long before the Essex monsoon arrived. As so often happens, I tend to paint a different sky in the finished work, and have many sketches and photographs of skies for reference. In this instance I felt a brighter sky with an atmospheric distance would work well. The blue part of the sky was done with coeruluem blue, while the main clouds are a result of mixing French ultramarine and cadmium red, which was also used in the distant shore.

However, skies are not just about colour and atmosphere. Giving the compositional aspect of a sky some consideration can really enhance your painting, and here I have arranged the cloud shapes to lead towards the barge, which is, of course, the centre of interest. Note that even the soft-edged cloud in the lower right arrows its way towards the prow of the vessel. The soft edges were created by running the colour into damp areas, wet-in-wet. Also, the orangey-yellow area in front of the mainmast with its associated reflection in the water, helps to draw the eye towards the barge.

You can learn more about skies in my book Skies, Light & Atmosphere, available from my website  If you would like to attend the preview of the exhibition on Saturday 19th or Sunday 20th October, or attend the watercolour demonstration and talk on the Sunday in the Barn Hall opposite the gallery, then please ring the gallery on 01372 458481 The gallery will be open from 10am to 5pm. Lincoln Joyce Fine Art is at 40 Church Road, Great Bookham, Surrey KT23 3PW The exhibition ends on 9th November.