It was such a beautiful, windstill morning I couldn’t resist painting outside despite the temperature struggling to get to 0°C. I don’t know that I would recommend it, but having ink and watercolour freeze as I used it was intriguing. It certainly “sparked joy” as ice crystals gathered on the tip of my brush.
Ending up with paint frozen on the surface of the paper made for something very tactile, inviting my fingers to slide across it. Of course, as soon as the painting was moved to a slightly warmer environment (i.e. indoors), it melted and the paint behaved like “normal”; the paper was cold-damp to its core across the entire sheet and took a little while to dry through.
This was my favourite painting from today, a slice of loch shore, started on location and finished indoors.
There’s one little tree in the Uig woodland that wears its autumn colours later and longer than the rest. I call it the “The Little Tree That Could” (context: the children’s book The Little Engine That Couldwith the lines “I think I can, I think I can … I knew I could“) and first painted it in 2014 (see this blog). On Monday I went to say hello again, taking my watercolours and some acrylic ink (video link if you don’t see it below).
My first painting, watercolour on A3 paper My second painting, which I like more than the firstWith the second I added a bit of background colour firstThird painting, liquid watercolour and Payne’s grey acrylic ink. There was a bit too much ink andnot enough orange, but overall I think it worked.
This video was taken when I started moving the colour around with a rigger. (It goes a awry for a bit as I open a bottle to add more orange, just skip that bit. Video link)
My fourth painting is my favourite, ending up a bit like Moses’ burning bush. Watercolour only.
I was sitting on a convenient rock next to the stone wall. 1 = Watercolour set. 2 = Painting drying. 3 = A bit of waterproof padding to sit on. 4 = Plastic folder with paper that also serves as a ‘drawing board’. 5 = Inks and fluid watercolour in plastic box. 6 = Water bottle (for me before my brushes) 7 = Backpack with raincoat, biscuits etc.
Looking at these photos you need to add a soundtrack of gulls and shags and wind. I came here several times, sketching in different mediums, struggling against tendency to straighten and shorten the ‘leg’. Most mornings I had it to myself. At low tide you can walk almost to the rock without getting your feet wet. One afternoon, at high tide, there were three women who swam out to it, without wetsuits.
To the left of the next photo
Low tide
First time trying my tin of chunky graphite sticks
Painting yesterday at Staffin beach at low tide, I found myself enjoying the large boulders dotted around. When I later showed the in-house art critic my photos, he said my paintings looked postcard size. That’s when I realised that not only had I supersized the average rock I was painting, but that the pebbles I was using to hold down wet paintings were also bigger than normal. Do wonder what I might have painted if I’d had a bigger brush with me!
The first drawing. I initially stopped when it was line only as I was enjoying the piece, but later added wash to it as it felt too sparse. The second painting. Judge the top angle of the rock by the horizon of the sea, not the edge of the shet of paper. My second-last painting. I blame the soporific sun for the rounding of the shape…Looking the ‘other way’.I mostly used Daniel Smith hematite genuine for the ‘rock colour’. Its granulation gives a sense of the texture of the rock. It’s the second-nearest colour in the left hand row in my box.Watercolour and acrylic ink on A3 paper. I like and dislike bits in each.In terms of composition, I think this works as a photo, but could I make it work as a painting? The dot of red is where I was sitting when painting; the orange is my Ma. I’m standing a couple of metres from the water’s edge.My Ma, plein-air knitting.“Do you need a viewfinder?”My Ma, plein-air knitting.Me thinking “I can’t see anything on the screen in this glare but this looks about the right angle”.This volcanic rock is amazingly matte black, darker than in the photo..Not a fossilized dinosaur brain. (We were close to where the dinosaur footprints can be found.)Abstracts from nature.I think the sheep noticed I was painting rocks and wanted to be included too.
“Imagine a fly walking on a surface. If the fly walked across a line and disappeared by going around a corner, then that line should be heavy. If the fly walked across a line which marked a change in material in the same plane then it should be light.” Brian Ramsey, “Trade Secrets”
Or if flies give you the heebie-jeebies, perhaps imagine an ant.
Or a caterpillar, though not a very hungry one like Eric Carle’s.
Continous line is as it sounds, drawing a line without stopping. I think of it as a line tracking what my eyes are looking at, done at the speed I am looking.
You don’t close your eyes when you look from one part of a subject to another. So if you’re creating a drawing that’s foremost about looking rather than representation, then the line should be continous, not broken (though it could get lighter).
If you’re using pencil, where you don’t have to stop for a while before you “run out” (i.e. need to sharpen it), things can get really interesting as you loose where you are on the sheet of paper (and you didn’t stop to reorientate yourself). By interesting I mean abstracted and distorted. It’s worth doing a few times, giving yourself a taste of the freedom that comes when you’re concentrating on looking, not on the results nor perspective nor representation.
I had a search through my photos but can’t find an example from my own drawings, which doesn’t really surprise me as I don’t often do it with pencil except in a life-drawing session. Have a search online for “blind continuous line”, but be sceptical about all the ones that look like perfect contour drawings.
What I like doing most is continuous line with quick checks keep the drawing achored in reality, regardless of what medium I’m using. An ink bottle pipette lends itself to this as the ink runs out regularly. When I stop to dip the pipette back in the bottle, I look down at my drawing, then back at what I’m drawing, decide where I’m going to look/draw next, position the pipette at a suitable point, then draw again. As I’m drawing I occasionally glance down, to check what I’ve done and where I am and whether I’ve run out of ink, but mostly as looking at what I’m drawing.
This video shows what I mean. I’m look at the outlines and cracks in a slab of rock on the shore at Camus Mor, north Skye (see this blog post and this one for more photos, from the day before I took this video):
I do it with both my left and my right hand, especially working in the A3 landscape sketchbook I’ve been using the past few weeks.
This is what it looked like when I’d finished the line drawing, with a section of rocks I was looking at behind it.
This time, after I’d done the ink line drawing, I then used a small, flat brush and water to turn some of the still-wet line into ink wash. Plus some paper towel to lift off excess ink and create pattern.
There’s a risk to doing this, a risk of messing up a drawing I was pleased with, not least because how much of the ink is still wet is an unknown factor. On a cold winter’s day I know it’ll be more rather than less, though the wind does still dry thinner lines quite fast. It would be more sensible to let the acrylic ink line dry completely and then add a layer of watercolour, which could be lifted and changed without moving the dry ink. But I spend too much time being sensible, logical, responsible, practical (cue: Supertramp’s Logical Song).
It happened to be low tide when I went out with my sketchbook yesterday, extra low as it’s spring tide. Even more of those enticing rocks to sketch, but which viewpoint would I choose, where would I sit? I wandered out a bit, further than ‘normal’, awkwardly as the rocks were rather slippery, getting distracted by pattern and colour.
This slab of black rock has become a favourite, and against the sun I was mesmerized once again. But beautiful as this was, I can’t sit with my back to the sea, even when I know it’s hours until high tide.
These are not fossilized dinosaur brains:
This is not where I spilt yellow paint:
Justification/evidence for adding lines of colour amongst my rock drawings:
There’s something about a pile of old rope:
Nature vs built environment. This is my favourite photo from the day but it also makes me wonder why I’ never noticed this juxtaposition before; perhaps because I usually sit on the wall rather than stand looking up at it:
Eventually I did pick a sketching spot, against a big stone that broke the breeze:
Then a rain shower snuck up behind me. Suffice to say, watercolour isn’t a wet-weather medium.
Look at this photo quickly and tell me which direction the sun was coming from when I took it. Left or right or behind?
Answers:
1. The shadows cast by the trees fall to the right, so the sun must be on the left.
2. Rocks in the river have golden highlights on the right, so the sun must be on the right.
Or
3. Reflected light on rocks wet from river spray, telling a contradictory story.
The sun was low to my left, catching the northern edge of the river gorge. This photo is looking further to the left.
A little later the sun had moved enough to shine onto some of the river rocks from the left (the red > in photo below), while the reflected light remained in the shadow.
Much as I love sunshine, diffused light (“soft northern light”) does simplify matters.
Yesterday afternoon I was at the Uig woodland, mostly sitting at the shore looking towards the ferry pier and Waternish Peninsula. This is a favourite spot, but this time the light was particularly beautiful, the juxtaposition of light and dark shapes, the clouds. Minimal colour when looking into the sun, but not entirely monochrome.
If I moved a little, there could be some green in the foreground.
This is the wide view you see when you emerge from trees.
A few steps further back.
Puddles and reflections can be distracting.
Where I sat to sketch, on an array of flattish stones, the grassy lump being a bit damp.
My sketching kit: watercolour box (my indulgent, big one which holds a flat and a rigger brush), pencil box (with coloured pencils, sharpener, and some acrylic inks, Payne’s grey, yellow, and red earth), watercolour paper (A3 350gsm NOT) in a plastic folder which also acts as a board, couple of clips to hold paper, water container , and a bag to carry it in.
I don’t regard any of these as successful pieces, but they do all have potential for being continued /reworked in the studio.
The first, the one on the left, has bits that work but don’t work together.; this might be resolved by overworking it with pastel or opaque paint. The middle one I stopped because I liked what the hematite watercolour was doing but suddenly thought I wanted more rocks/seaweed in the composition but would mess it up if I tried to alter it, and so started the third. That lacks contrast, but the 350g paper needed to dry totally so that subsequent layers of paint didn’t just spread around and soak in. It’s a “stopped too early” painting.
Will I rework these? Maybe, rather than probably. What my fingers are itching to do is to paint the greys and light on a large canvas, lots of texture and interesting greys.
I’m sure that somewhere someone has defined to the nth what constitutes plein-air painting and what’s sketching, but unless you’re in a plein-air competition, does it matter? I’m reminded of that Monet quote:
“Whether my cathedral views, my views of London and other canvases are painted from life or not is nobody?s business and of no importance whatsoever.”*
“On-location information gathering” is rather more of a mouthful than “plein-air painting”, but it’s a more accurate description of what I’m thinking and doing. The enjoyment of sitting outside, the potential of some paint and paper, the slowing down to look and to translate to paper, that’s what is most important for me. It’s simultaneously stimulating and relaxing.
I’m not focused on end results (though getting a piece I like is indeed satisfying) nor on getting everything into one perfect painting. It’s about slowing down to focus on the moment and a slice of whatever place I’m in, spending time looking and enjoying and selecting and mark making and playing with colour (or sometimes monochrome). Sometimes I call it painting, sometimes sketching, sometimes drawing. Sometimes I call it taking my sketchbook for a walk. Mostly I just call it having fun.
What do I use? At the moment it’s A3 watercolour paper (350gsm) carried in a plastic folder that’s vaguely showerproof, a couple of big clips to stop a sheet from flapping in the wind (there are usually rocks to hold it down if I put it to one side while it’s still wet), my biggest watercolour set (because I’m enjoying all the colours and learning their properties), a pencil box with acrylic inks (Payne’s grey and white are a constant, the other colours vary but often a green or yellow) and a few coloured pencils. Plus a bottle with water, a container with a lid for brush water, a flat brush and a rigger that fit into the watercolour set, paper towel, and ginger biscuits.
Knowing when to stop isn’t only an in-studio problem. I really liked this painting once I added the sea and nearly stopped at this point. But because it’s a point at which I often stop, I decided to push past it and add colour.
This is where I ended up. And, no, I don’t like it as much, but I am still pleased I pursued it (because if you always stop at the same point, things never develop) and it’s generated ideas for next time.
At one point, I had a four-legged painting companion who wasn’t a sheep:
*Quoted in: Monet’s Years at Giverny, Metropolitan Museum of Art, p28
