Category Archives: watercolour techniques

DAVID BELLAMY GLAZING A WATERCOLOUR FOR ATMOSPHERE

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The glazing technique is an extremely powerful way of creating atmosphere in your landscapes, and is a method I use regularly. This involves laying a transparent or semi-transparent wash of watercolour over part of a painting that has already been painted. You need to ensure that the paper is completely dry before laying on the glaze, although if you are very experienced you can on occasion get away with laying it on a damp surface, although it is easy to end up with a mess in that case!

This is a watercolour sketch of a scene high up in the Sundance Mountains in the Canadian Rockies, painted in a cartridge A4 sketch-book, and is almost a monochrome. Throughout I’ve used a mixture of French ultramarine and cadmium red in various strengths of tone, firstly laying on a wash of a light version and when this had dried applying detail with a darker tone of the same mix to indicate the shadow areas on the peaks. When all the background detail had been painted I waited till it dried and then applied a glaze of the same mixture only making this darker above the large boulders and lightening it as it crept up the face of the far mountain. This softened some of the lower detail and created a sense of misty atmosphere in the valley below. I then completed the foreground detail on rocks and trees. This scene is featured in my Watercolour and Beyond book published by Search Press. It is packed with watercolour techniques and methods to enhance your paintings.

The glaze method can be used on all types of landscape, not just mountain scenery, and limiting the colours in this way further enhances the mood. With sharp contrasts in the foreground the sense of misty atmosphere is further enhanced. The technique is also great for warming up or cooling down a passage in your composition, or if you wish to highlight a particular part of it, such as a building, summit or other feature.

One extremely effective tip is to try this method out on an old watercolour, perhaps one that hasn’t really worked for you, so dig out some of you old painting and have some wonderfully experimental moments with them.

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.

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 HAPPY CHRISTMAS

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I don’t know about you, but I find December is always a mad and chaotic rush around trying to keep normal life and business functioning while coping with the extra tasks of Christmas. I’ve just returned from town whtere I found the toy shop far more interesting for buying presents than the adult ones!

This scene I came across while stumbling through the snow-bound woods near the Bachhowy River a short distance from home. That was a long time ago and the cottage was abandoned, but to give it a sense of life I added rising smoke. The sky is mainly quinacridone Sienna and moonglow, with some touches of French ultramarine. I used masking fluid to reserve the snow-laden branches. The scene was more or less as I have created it, complete with puddle in the foreground, although I have changed the sky considerably.

I shall be enjoying a far from relaxing Christmas in the company of my rather energetic little grand-daughters in Pembrokeshire, but I’m sure we’ll have a great time, and I wish you all a very Happy Christmas and good health and much success with your creative activities in the New Year.