Category Archives: atmosphere

David Bellamy – Recording Light and Shadow

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    Light is critical to our painting. Without it our subject is lost. On my recent trip to the Lake District I experienced many exciting ‘light moments’, often simply gazing at the light in wonder at the sheer beauty, then snapping out of my mesmeric state to quickly record the moment. Just watching, and observing, though will tell you a lot about how light and shadow affect what we see and paint. In the mountains these effects are often accentuated by the numerous folds in the mountainsides and the inter-relationships of peaks and ridges, which can seem to change continually in windy, broken-cloud conditions. If you take a series of photographs of these ever-changing moments it can be quite revealing how the emphasis changes.

This view of Upper Loch Torridon is just part of a composition. While on the spot I sketched it once and photographed it several times while the light and shadows on the mountain were changing. This method of working extends your options for the finished painting considerably. Note where the hard and soft edges to the shadows appear, and how certain crags are highlighted at times, thus providing a potential centre of interest. On distant peaks I prefer to suggest detail rather than make it stand out too strongly.

This watercolour was painted on 140-lb Saunders Waterford Not paper, made by
St Cuthberts Mill  and it has a very attractive surface to work on. The painting will be part of my exhibition at the John Muir Trust Wild Space Visitor Centre in Pitlochry from 17th April to 18th June. For details see the John Muir Trust site, telephone 01796 470080, or Our website
    I shall also be giving a demonstration of painting a highland scene in the nearby Pitlochry Festival Theatre at 2pm on Wednesday 23rd April.

David Bellamy – Adding colour excitement to your watercolours

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One lovely technique in watercolour painting is to float two colours into each other and allow them to merge, sometimes adding more of one colour or other while they are still wet, and then working a dark shape up against them when they have dried. This can really make your work sing, whether you paint landscapes, still life, flowers or figures.

 In this small section of a painting the bush on the right-hand side has been painted by washing in two colours side by side – cadmium orange and light red – and letting them blend in. Later I painted in the darker purple-grey to the right of the bush, taking it up to the top, in a hard edge, while allowing flecks of the original colours to remain here and there. Afterwards I added the shadow under the bush and finally the branches. This approach gives a rather pleasing variegated effect to the subject and is worth practicing.


This painting is part of  Wild Highlands, an exhibition to be held at the John Muir Trust Wild Space Visitor Centre in Station Road, Pitlochry from 17th April to 18th June. Do come along and support the John Muir Trust if you can, as they are doing all they can to keep the Scottish Highlands wild and beautiful, and free from inappropriate industrial development. I shall also be demonstrating painting Highland scenery in watercolour at the Pitlochry Festival Theatre in aid of the Trust at 2pm on 23rd April. Tickets are £10 and may be booked by telephoning 01796 484626

For details of the exhibition see www.jmt.org/wild-space-gallery-shows.asp or telephone 01796 470080 or email  jane.grimley@jmt.org  The Highlands in spring are absolutely magical, so why not make it a wild painting break?

David Bellamy – Painting the right sort of bad weather

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We’ve just finished the studio filming with APV Films for my forthcoming DVD on painting Winter Landscapes, due out in September with my book of the same title. Most of the filming went smoothly, although the last part was heavily punctuated by wild gusts of wind and heavy rain lashing the studio, accompanied by a bombardment of artillery fire from the Sennybridge range. Thankfully they were not firing at us! It rather reminds me of the time I was sketching and camping on a Northumberland bombing range, having missed the signs somehow……….

At the moment I’m working on Wild Highlands, an exhibition in conjunction with the John Muir Trust, which will run from 16th April to 18th June in Pitlochry, Scotland. One of the aims of the exhibition is to highlight the ongoing devastation of the Scottish Highlands by industrialisation by massed wind turbines and their supporting power lines, which are now encroaching on some of the stunning mountain landscapes that epitomise the Highlands. Many of these will be on peat blankets and former forestry areas, which are the closest equivalent we have in the UK to rain-forests.

This painting of Beinn Eighe will be in the exhibition, and you can see that the mountain has several summits. Painting all these in good weather can invoke a feeling of having too many summits, so this is where it’s often a good idea to bring in some bad weather to hide one or two. It also adds a sense of mystery, which viewers love. I usually achieve this effect of mountains hidden in clouds by running the mountain washes up into a wet area in the sky – in this instance where you can see the pink effect. An alternative technique is to soften off the mountain peak with a wet sponge.

As you can see here, I’ve actually made my ‘bad weather’ rather more user-friendly by painting with alizarin crimson and French ultramarine mixed with cadmium red, so make sure you utilise the right brand of ‘bad weather!’

David Bellamy – Painting snow scenes

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This seems like the wettest January I’ve ever experienced, but even so there have been 3 or 4 absolutely fabulous days of glorious sunshine, blue skies and hardly a breath of wind, which shows that if we wait for them, and have all our art gear ready to go, we can take advantage of some beautiful spring-like days even in the wettest of Januarys. I’ve had some marvellous moments sketching in the hills lately, but all too brief.

Anyway, in anticipation of some snow (much to the neighbours’ concern we’ve been invoking the little-known snow-making ritual in the garden, but so far only attracted further deluge), I shall just cover a few basic points to help you with your snow scenes. This painting of a Herefordshire scene in late winter I did many years ago. I began by making the sky dark enough to highlight the snow-covered roofs, which were left as white paper. Even so, the cloudless sky suggests a fine day. To avoid the scene appearing too cold all over, I emphasised the red-brick walls of the buildings, and this also draws the eye to them as the centre of interest.

Clods of earth from the ploughed ruts peek up through the snow, and I have re-arranged them slightly to aim towards the buildings. The field under the strong sunshine reflected dazzling white all over, but I wanted to subdue some of this so that the emphasis would be thrown more towards the centre of the composition, so I washed clean water right across the field and then a wash of cobalt blue with a touch of cadmium red over the immediate foreground and to either side. This is a technique you can use quite easily to highlight any part of a painting you wish.

Enjoy the snow when it comes! I must get out into the garden again………….

David Bellamy – Adding a little mystery to your Watercolours

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I’m only just dragging myself out of that Christmas sloth, not encouraged by day after day of pouring rain. Where is all that lovely snow? Anyway, thanks to all of you who send us Christmas greetings. It was much appreciated by Jenny and myself.

My art year has started with an article in Leisure Painter Magazine and 2014 rings up another milestone: I’ve been writing articles for Leisure Painter for the last 30 years, and it has been a marvellous relationship with some great folk. So the painting I am featuring here is part of that article, although I shall now be discussing a different aspect.

The picture shows a small corner of a watercolour of Tenby Harbour at dusk. This is a magical time to capture images, as the atmosphere tends to be more accentuated, and you are less likely to overdo the detail as so much of it is lost in the atmosphere! Although in this instance I could actually see  more detail in the buildings, I deliberately avoided putting in too much, and in fact simply laid a weak wash over the lower parts so that the suggestions of masts and boats would stand out more. At such times shapes run into each other, often creating a sense of mystery, so going out in search of subjects when you can hardly see them might at first sound rather perverse, but it does teach you a very powerful lesson in creating mystery and atmosphere.

So I shall end by wishing you all many magical and mysterious moments of happy painting in 2014