Category Archives: David Bellamy

Blog Posts by the artist David Bellamy

David Bellamy – Drawing detail with a rigger

Posted on by
Reply

Jenny and I have just returned from Pembrokeshire, rather wind-battered, although the exciting seas did leave me quite exhilarated, with mighty Atlantic waves crashing into Linney Head and shooting up over the tops of 130-foot cliffs, dwarfing them in a wild expression of Nature’s power. Sketching in such conditions is challenging and one page of my sketchbook was torn, but with a veritable row of bulldog clips I managed to keep going and make the most of the stupendous seas.

The wave-splashes you see in this pic are fairly small – a mere 100 feet – compared to the really high ones, but I was rather engrossed in the sketching to watch everything. The mood and light was incredibly dramatic, and at times the sky was almost completely black with a thin sliver of light on the horizon. Anyway, make sure you have plenty of clips and elastic bands when you venture forth in these conditions!


While I was in Pembrokeshire I delivered some paintings to Art Matters in White Lion Street in Tenby, and they will be going on display in their exhibition on Saturday 22nd February. This detail from one of the paintings illustrates some fine detail drawn with a fine rigger brush. The trunks, gate and fence posts were rendered with a mixture of burnt umber and French ultramarine, but before I apply the paint to paper I ensure the rigger comes to a fine point by dragging it across some scrap paper and at the same time twirling it between first finger and thumb. You need to practice this technique of drawing with a fine brush as it takes some getting used to, but you might find it easier to first of all try drawing with a brush as fine as a rigger, but with shorter hairs.

If you visit the exhibition you’ll see that this painting is a little different from the detail part shown here. After scanning this I decided to include some chickens and a cockerel, as the building looked a little forlorn. Unfortunately I forgot to re-scan it! The gallery telephone number is 01834 843375. If you click on the link above you will reach their website with all their details.

In the meantime, enjoy your painting and I hope you will not be suffering from too much wind……

David Bellamy – Painting the right sort of bad weather

Posted on by
2

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

Posted on by
5

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

Posted on by
3

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

David Bellamy – Painting figures in action

Posted on by
3

Drawing and painting figures is always fascinating, whether to include in a landscape painting, as subjects in themselves, or in a fantasy context as you will see below. Life drawing is easily the best way of learning to draw the figure, though this may hardly be necessary if you are simply wishing to add a few tiny figures into a wide open landscape. I love drawing figures, especially action ones, really doing something interesting, and much of the time these tend to be humorous.

This is a small part of one of the illustrations from my children’s book Terror of the Trolls, where several trolls are gorging themselves – one is eating a leg of some sort, the one on the left is warming his feet in the soup, and the third is flat out after a heavy drinking session. Getting people to pose for these activities was not a real problem, though some of the more gymnastic poses in other parts of the book did rather leave me scratching my head! Note here how you cannot see the whole body of any one troll, and this makes it look more natural, especially in non-fantasy situations. Try to have your figures relating to each other, and not there just to ‘fill the gap’. Back-ground figures can remain as silhouettes, thus throwing the emphasis more onto the main figures.

One especially effective technique that occurs repeatedly in this scene is that of creating soft edges. This not only lends atmosphere, but suggests depth and distance as one sharp-edged feature will come forward, in front of the softer-edged one. Terror of the Trolls is the second book of the Llandoddie tales and is available from our website

Last night Jenny and I enjoyed the Erwood Station Craft Centre Christmas Party, where the lovely Lorraine King entertained us with her wonderful repertoire of songs. It was a wild night (outside!), and in addition to the bridge being closed, three other roads were cut off by fallen trees, so it was a wonder that so many folk attended, having hiked over hill and vale or probably coracled across the Wye. Nothing stops the Erwood Station Stompers! It closes for Christmas and re-opens on 14th February.

Jenny and I thank all of you who have sent in so many kind messages over the last year, and wish you and your families a very Happy Christmas wherever you live, and may your painting give you many moments of great pleasure and success in 2014