Category Archives: Jenny Keal Blog

Blog Posts by the artist Jenny Keal

The importance of sketching

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Beddgelert Sketchbook
Beddgelert, Snowdonia, Pen and watercolour sketch by Jenny Keal
(click on picture for larger view)
This sketch of the back of the houses along the river in Beddgelert was done during our last painting course at Sygun Fawr Hotel. The initial outlines were drawn with a Sepia Pitt pen size S and then the watercolour washes were added. Some of the washes were done on the spot and I finished them off back in the hotel.David and I believe that the single most useful thing you can do to improve your painting is to take up sketching. Drawing and painting outdoors in front of your subject brings many benefits with it. Not only getting out and about in the fresh air, and having a little exercise if you are able to walk, but being in front of your subject instead of working only from a photograph means you are able to move around and get the best viewpoint, or sketch from several different angles to get any hidden details, and get closer to see details not apparent in a photograph.Photographs are not particularly good at capturing atmosphere and recession but when you are outside looking at a scene, half closing your eyes will reveal the tonal and colour differences between the distant and closer objects.

Sketching in watercolour or pen and wash is a very quick way to capture colour and tone out of doors and it has the added benefit of loosening up your painting style. After all it is only a sketch and not intended for exhibition and because your time is limited it is not so easy to overwork it. You can learn a lot from sketching in watercolour.

Even if you are not particularly mobile, if it is possible for you to get out and enjoy nature, do try and do some sketching out of doors. I’m convinced you will find it improves your work.

Atmosphere

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Little Langdale

Little Langdale

To painters, atmosphere has two meanings; the emotions conjured up by the image you are creating or the effect of the weather on the scene.

In this painting of Little Langdale the esoteric atmosphere I was trying to create was of an isolated farmhouse, surrounded by the mountains, abandoned and slowly decaying, there are no animals, the roof is beginning to sag and the wilderness is returning to the fields. All is not lost though, the roof is intact. Perhaps someone will make it a home once again.

The other meaning of the word atmosphere in this painting is created by the use of colour, tone, and detail. These are the three essential ingredients to help you create a sense of recession in your painting, and I make no apology for referring to them time and time again. Keep the distant features cooler in colour, lighter in tone and with less detail than the foreground and middle distance features and you will be well on your way to inviting your viewer into the picture,

You can read more about this aspect of painting and many other tips in my book, Painting with Pastels, published by Search Press. There is also a DVD of the same name to accompany the book and a special offer on the two together.

Getting out of a rut – Misty marsh in Pan Pastel

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Misty marsh in Pan Pastel

Misty marsh in Pan Pastel

The inspiration for a painting can come in many shapes and forms but most frequently it is a combination of atmosphere and light that sparks the fire.

The sparkle of light on water and a gauze of mist lends enchantment to almost any scene.

In this painting the misty effect was achieved with Pan Pastels on a sheet of white Clairefontaine Pastel Mat paper.

The method of applying the Pan Pastel colour with sponges naturally lends itself to soft edges. The water is mainly the paper left untouched but the highlights on the clouds were created with a small Sofft

tm tool which looks like a plastic palette knife with a sponge sleeve and is very effective for smaller areas.

The challenge of working with Pan Pastels, which does not lend itself readily to creating sharp edges, has made me re-evaluate the amount of fine detail I include in a painting and has ‘loosened up’ my recent work. Working with different methods of applying colour is a stimulus that can get you out of a rut.

Go on try something new.

I will be running a pastel painting course in Cheddar next autumn if you would like to learn more about my methods of working.

More Pan Pastels – Monument Valley

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This is another painting that I did with Pan Pastel. This time I used a sheet of white Clairefontaine Pastel Mat paper. This paper has a good tooth which is not quite so ‘sharp’ as sandpaper.

The challenge this time was the warm colour of the distant features, especially the right hand mitten, which would make creating a sense of recession quite difficult. When the painting was almost finished the colours of the two ‘mittens’ was very similar so I loaded the oval sponge with a light coating of white pan pastel and patted it gently over the distant ‘butte’ to push it into the distance.

My family and I travelled to Monument Valley earlier this year to celebrate my 60th birthday. Since a child I have loved cowboy films and many of them were filmed in this very special scenery. To fulfill one of my lifetime ambitions, we hired horses and went riding through the buttes with a Navajo guide. We also went to the Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon and Mesa Verde, so we ticked off several more of my amibitions whilst we were there.

Experimenting

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Twilight Cottage

In order to develop our painting skills, it is a good idea to experiment from time to time, Often this starts with just making a bit of a mess. A while ago I wanted to try using Mixed Media on the sandpaper, Fisher 400 Artpaper, that I love to use for my pastel paintings, as I was aware that it was waterproof, unlike the industrial sandpaper that I used before Fisher 400 was produced.

This painting of Twilight Cottage, started with an ink outline of the building, followed by a watercolour wash of Naples Yellow and Ultramarine in the sky and Cadmium Orange and Cadmium Yellow in the foreground. I let this all mingle and some of the ink drawing ran into the washes.

At first I thought that this was a mistake but when it was dry the dirtyness of the cottage appealed to me and also suggested a low light. So I worked into the painting with pastel, leaving large areas of the watercolour washes showing and added some undergrowth in the foreground with the scraping technique, which involves scraping flakes of pastel onto the painting and pressing them into the surface with a palette knife. This creates a spatter which resembles flowers or seed heads.

You can read how to create the scraping technique in my book, and you can see it demonstrated in film on my DVD,. The book and dvd are entitled Painting with Pastel and are on special offer our website.