Category Archives: David Bellamy

Blog Posts by the artist David Bellamy

DAVID BELLAMY Painting Rock Features

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Rock and cliff features are some of my favourites, not just in the mountains, but when painting coastal scenes. You can obtain truly striking effects of light on rocks and crags in the contrasts of light and shadows areas, and also colours are intensified wet rocks are caught in certain light or when they become wet, allowing you to introduce imaginative and creative responses.

In this composition high up on the Sundance Mountains of the Canadian Rockies I turned afternoon light into early evening by flooding the peaks with a transparent glaze of French Ultramarine and Alizarin Crimson, and deepening the shadows. Much of the rock surfaces I have left completely blank to increase the suggestion of strong light, while the shadow parts were painted with a weak mixture of French Ultramarine and cadmium red, then yellow ochre was floated in while it was still wet. When this had dried I drew in some fracture lines with a no. 1 rigger using French Ultramarine and burnt umber, applying more pressure to the brush in places to vary the width of the fractures.

For the flattish foreground I glued tissue paper over the Saunders Waterford 200lb rough paper, which of course changes the response of a wash considerably. Tissue paper is quite useful for depicting rocks as it creates natural fractures when glued down, if you leave the crinkle ridges in place. I painted over it using the side of a large sable to further suggest textures, and for this I apply a very wet wash then follow it up by dropping other colour into it to cteate variations. This is one of the techniques from my book Watercolour and Beyond, which contains many techniques and devices I’ve not covered before.

I shall be carrying out a demonstration and workshop at https://internationalwatercolourmasters.com/events-new/david-bellamy-19-may-1-day-workshop/ the International Watercolour Masters event in Shropshire on 18th and 19th May and would love to see you there if you can make it.

DAVID BELLAMY: HAPPY CHRISTMAS

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It feels very un-Christmassy here in rain-drenched Pembrokeshire at the moment while I’m recovering from a fairly mild dose of ‘flu, and I’ll need to be in top form next week when my two over-active grand-daughters arrive. Jenny will be safely ensconced in Hampshire with her ‘little’ ones while I face the full force of furious chaos.

A fall of snow would help of course, with the distraction of building a snowman while I sneak in a quick watercolour sketch if I’m lucky. Plotting it is fairly easy as I can take the girls up handy toboggan slopes at the same time and where the mountains are in full view. The attached watercolour of the Black Mountains gives an idea of what can be done reasonably quickly. In cases like this where speed is vital then watercolour pencils are truly effective.

Note how the track on the right-hand side has been defined in the snow with intermittent stabs of the brush to suggest a winding effect. For this I used transparent red oxide, and also floated it into the dark mass under the trees while this was still wet. The background at this point has been kept simple with just a stroke or two of a wash brush, and the mountain ridge at the top has been lost in cloud in places. These are all really simple techniques which use the watercolour medium to advantage. This has been painted in the studio on Saunders Waterford 140lb NOT paper, but in a sketch these effects can be achieved in two or three minutes with watercolour pencils, working freely without any need to create a complete landscape composition.

Enjoy your Christmas and have a great time. I wish you every happiness for Christmas and 2026 and evry success with your painting.

SNOW SCENES IN THE MANNER OF THE IMPRESSIONISTS

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DAVID BELLAMY: SNOW SCENES IN THE MANNER OF THE IMPRESSIONISTS

It’s been an all-action autumn with sketching adventures in the Peak District, Lake District, wildest Sussex and last week a fabulous winter day high up on the Brecon Beacons in icy conditions, so there’s been little time for blogging. I’ll try to fit in a blog post on the Lake District fun and games when I can, and also the episode in Sussex where I hadn’t realised such wild landscapes existed.

The January issue of Leisure Painter (which is on sale now) features my article on painting snow scenery using methods practiced by the French Impressionists, and for this I have reverted to painting in oils. Monet, Sisley and Pissarro were the main ones who worked on snowbound landscapes, and as Monet enjoyed painting trains I painted a reconstruction of a scene at Erwood Station in the 1960s.

This shows the 4.10 train from Brecon approaching Erwood Station in falling snow, the atmosphere of steam, snow and smoke making many of the images delightfully blurred as in a Monet painting. I declined to make the railway lines more distinct and detailed as Monet would render these with a few swipes of the brush. Where the snow lay deep on the ground I introduced not just blues and greys, but pinks, ochres and even orange, each of which suggested a vibrancy and spontaneity in a manner loved by the Impressionists. Larger blobs of flake white – a white favoured by Monet as it dried rapidly – I applied with a painting knife, then brushed part of the edges of the heavy impasto to blend in the lower parts.

You can see a more detailed description, with further examples of the techniques of Pissarro and Sisley in the current Leisure Painter magazine. I’m really enjoying going back to oil painting at the moment. These ‘Impressionist’ paintings, along with many watercolours, are on display at Erwood Station at the moment. The centre is well signposted off the A470 just north of Erwood Village in Powys, a great place for tea and cakes and a warm welcome. Telephone 01982 560555 open Tuesday to Sunday in winter.

My Watercolour and Beyond book shows a few examples of rendering snow and ice using methods such as glazing, watercolour ground, tissue paper, brushing white gouache over darker washes to create textured snow-cover, and cling film for patches of ice. Many of these techniques are quite different from my normal way of working and are not just effective, but great fun to try! Experimenting and bringing a sense of exciting anticipation into your paintings can be quite inspirational – go for it!

DAVID BELLAMY: THE MAGIC OF WINTER TREES

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The sight of a beautiful mature winter tree can bring such joy, and spending a little time ensuring your trees bring out those magical feelings is well worthwhile. When I come across a fine example I sketch and photograph the tree from different angles, and in the studio I keep these in a support file which is a reservoir of landscape features that I can add to a scene I am working on, or substitute for some blasted and tattered beanpole of an excuse for a tree that might be present in a scene.

These trees are part of a composition, and as you can see the supporting tree on the left has been left almost as a monochrome, while fading it out at the bottom, two effective methods of pushing it into the background. More colour has been brought into the trunk of the main tree, and this is something important to observe in a mature winter tree. The green apatite genuine in the middle section of the trunk gives way to light red near the bottom, while higher up against the light background the trunk and branches become silhouettes. The dark background bushes define the lower trunk and some of the thin branches have been created by scratching with a scalpel when the paper had dried. Watch for the character of the branches in your trees, and here you see how they have been drawn with a sinuous downward looping, apart from the topmost branches. The finer ones were achieved with a no. 1 rigger brush. I used Daniel Smith watercolours and Saunders Waterford not high-white paper.

Seek out these lovely examples and study the trunks in particular. I sometimes work more detail into really exciting trunks, and in Radnorshire we have some fabulous trees, so deliciously twisted and gnarled that you expect some witch to fly out of the branches. There are many examples of trees in my books: my Complete Guide to Landscapes is packed with them, and you can easily obtain them from Search Press.

I shall be giving a demonstration of winter trees in watercolour at Erwood Station Craft Centre on Saturday 1st November. This will include showing how to use a tree as a focal point, adding in supporting trees, suggesting distant trees, enhancing trees with colour, avoiding the silhouette effect, and so much more. Tickets are available at www.evenbrite.co.uk and if you need further information Erwood Station can be contacted on 01982 560555 Proceeds from the event will be donated to MidWales Mind charity. Bring a notebook, camera and any questions you may have.

Another demonstration that is open to all will be at the International Watercolour Masters 2026 at Lilleshall Hall in Shropshire on 18th May 2026. You can book my session there now at www.iwm2026.com

DAVID BELLAMY: ADDING VARIETY INTO A LANDSCAPE

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Often, even in a stunning landscape subject, I feel the need to add something of myself into the composition to enhance it as a painting. Whilst this may involve introducing an extra tree, perhaps a more handsome specimen than is present, or enlarging a feature to give it more presence, or many other such alterations, here I will concentrate on adding a little variety to the existing features in a scene to breathe fresh life into it.

In this scene set in Mid-Wales the only feature I have added is the puddle below the right-hand gate which helps as a lead-in to the farmhouse. The main point I would like to put across, however, is the addition of colours into the outbuilding roof, and its exaggerated wonkiness at the top and bottom. I used cadmium red and cobalt blue on the corrugated iron roof, leaving some white untouched paper for highlights and a mixture of the two colours on the darker left-hand end. Energetic dry-brush strokes of the brush work well in this situation, and any slight mess at the bottom can be overpainted with a dark mixture of burnt umber and French ultramarine as in this structure.

Sometimes a chimney can benefit from being a different tonal value than the gable end of a building, and as you see here I have made it dark, then losing the dark tone as it merges into the wall below. It is better to let this gradually change in this way, rather than paint a strong and hard definition between chimney and main structure as you see in many buildings. These are just minor points but they can have a striking effect on your finished work.

I have been invited to demonstrate at the International Watercolour Masters exhibition in Lilleshall Hall in Shropshire on 13th May 2026. You can find details at: https://internationalwatercolourmasters.com/portfolio_page/david-bellamy-uk/?v=7885444af42e

I am looking forward to the event and hope to see you there. I’ll be happy to answer questions, and do bring along any of my books you would like signed – this is something many people bring up when they come along and have left the book behind! Enjoy your painting during the rest of this amazing summer…..or maybe you are longing for a bit of good old British autumn drizzle for a change?