Category Archives: David Bellamy

Blog Posts by the artist David Bellamy

David Bellamy – Painting figures in action

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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

Creating small flecks of white in your watercolours

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I’ve been away in south-east England last week, and for two of the days working on the stage-by-stage paintings for my next book, Winter Landscapes in Watercolour at the Search Press studio. One of those awkward little problems facing the watercolourist is when you need to include small spots or lines of white in a scene, a particular necessity with snow subjects.

Snow scene

You can try masking fluid, but this often induces larger blobs than you want and can sometimes look wrong when it is rubbed off. Scratching with a scalpel is another method, and this can be very effective, though not everyone is confident with using one. In this scene showing part of a painting I have painted on white gouache where I wanted patches of snow on the upper side of branches close to the trunk, where they tend to remain longer as there is less motion in that part of the branch. I’ve also dabbed some on the window sill of the barn. The roofs were left white, and you can see that because the sun is so low the tops of the roofs are slightly darker in shadow than the strips at the end where the snow is quite thick. I often use white gouache for tiny areas like the branches and sills.

The book will be published by Search Press in September, and will be accompanied by a DVD from APV Films. As well as winter landscapes it will cover late autumn to early spring, covering a wide variety of scenery and techniques. It is the third in the series, following Mountains & Moorlands in Watercolour and Skies, Light & Atmosphere in Watercolour, both of which are available on my website

David Bellamy – Painting woodland scenes in watercolour

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My last blog featured autumn trees, and as it’s such a good time to be working on trees I’ll follow it up with summer trees which can be adapted for autumn trees if necessary. Woodlands are great places at this time of year when the autumn mists create fascinating, soft backgrounds. Even in sharp visibility I tend to make woodland backgrounds less harsh as it adds a sense of mystery and simplifies the composition.

Woodland trees

This is part of a painting of a beechwood and you will see that I’ve given a different treatment to each of the three main tree-trunks. The right-hand tree was painted in while the background was still damp, and this included the foliage as well as the trunk. The soft, cool colour suggests distance. When the paper was dry I painted in the middle tree-trunk onto dry paper. The sharper edges tend to bring it closer, yet there is still no detail on the trunk. Finally the closest tree has been made larger and with strong detail and dark tones, thus really bringing it forward. I’ve also made use of the dead leaves of the previous winter lying on the ground, to enhance the warm foreground and hence push the rest of the scene into the distance.

The complete painting can be seen at Erwood Station Craft Centre, with several others. I shall be demonstrating there on Saturday 23rd November from 2pm to 4pm, on how to rescue watercolours that have not quite worked, and how to improve parts of a painting with which you may not be happy with. The cost of the demo is £7 which will be donated to the Welsh Air Ambulance. Erwood Station lies beside the beautiful River Wye, about 8 miles south of Builth Wells, and is a lovely place to explore, stop for tea and refreshments and walk some of the footpaths. At the moment Erwood bridge is closed, so you either need to approach the centre from the north via the B4567, or if coming from the south cross the Wye at Boughrood bridge and drive northwards with the Wye on your left. Ring 01982 560674 for information.

Capturing autumn colours in watercolour

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Autumn colours have been late arriving this season. I’ve just returned from running a painting course in Snowdonia, hoping for a blaze of colour, but sadly only a few trees co-operated. Despite the strong winds a lot of leaves remain on the trees and it is still worth getting out and seeking colourful subjects out there.

autumn trees

This is a small demonstration piece I did for the group. While I use a number of warm colours for autumn trees, here I’ve applied gamboge, a lovely warm yellow, with cadmium orange. To make your autumn colours really sing you need to juxtapose them against a mauve or blue-grey, as these are complementary colours. You will see this phenomenon at its best where autumn trees stand against distant hills or mountains, or against a dark sky as in the painting.

There are some good examples of this in my Mountains & Moorlands in Watercolour book, and the DVD of the same name. There is a special offer on this package, which is only available on my website.

At the moment Jenny is working on a fascinating staged pastel painting of a Moroccan scene – I pop into her studio every now and again to have a peep, and you can find it at on her blog 

Don’t forget, my exhibition in Lincoln Joyce Fine Art continues until Saturday 9th November, where you will find some watercolours from some of my books, as well as new paintings. They can be found at 40 Church Road, Great Bookham, Surrey,  Telephone 01372 458481

David Bellamy – Painting in harbours

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Harbours and moorings are often not the easiest places to sketch and paint when you find a mass of boats, masts and other nautical paraphernalia confronting you. How can you work out which mast is attached to which craft, and is that an oversized cabin or a bouncy castle in the distance – this can be especially difficult to work out in poor lighting.
Heybridge Basin
This is part of a watercolour painting of Heybridge Basin in Essex. There were many more boats than I’ve shown, but I’ve eliminated much of the visual clutter, concentrating on the more handsome vessels. This is the best way of avoiding the effect of a jungle of massed detail. When you want to identify the important and most attractive boats it helps to move around and sketch and photograph from slightly different angles. This helps to see which feature belongs to which boat. A pair of binoculars can help if you are some distance away, and watch for changes of light which can give further clues.

In your rendering of the scene try to keep the background fairly simple, otherwise too much detail will confuse the composition. Harbours can be notorious places for strong background features that can
dominate if you are not careful. In this scene I have kept the background trees devoid of any detail so that the emphasis is on the boats.

You can see the whole of this painting in my exhibition at Lincoln Joyce Fine Art, at 40 Church Road, Great Bookham, in Surrey telephone 01372 458481. The exhibition continues until 9th November and is open 10am to 5 pm, Tuesday to Saturday. There are more details on my website.