Category Archives: limited palette

DAVID BELLAMY: PAINTING ICESCAPES

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After five days of gloomy weather in the mountains of Snowdonia last month I decided I just had to go for the subject that was my prime target this time, whatever the last day threw at me. I aimed to climb up Cwm Tryfan to a spot where I could sketch Bristly Ridge, and hope the view was clear when I arrived. The light started well, but deteriorated to the murky mich-mash it had been all week. Plastered in thick ice, the east face of Tryfan gave me hope that my target scene would be likewise, but just being on the mountain gave me such joy, and fired me to do several sketches on the way up.

When Bristly Ridge eventually hove into view it took my breath away. Although I was familiar with the face and had climbed it in ice-rimed conditions, it presents an awesome spectacle, especially after many days of icy easterly blasts. I moved to a position where an attractive cascade and brook offered a superb lead-in and then sat on a friendly nearby rock to sketch in an A4 book. Unfortunately my position was rather exposed to that useful but hostile easterly that still blasted away, but initially the effort of getting up there kept me warm.

The poor light made observation of much of the rock architecture almost impossible to make out, but the ridge outline stood out well, as did the main gullies. I began with a grey pen, quickly drawing in the main features, well aware that I needed to work fast. As the temperature hovered around the freezing point the washes of French ultramarine with a touch of lunar black worked well without freezing up. I inserted the more prominent features first, working right across the composition, then applying a more impressionist style to suggest the lesser important crags and gullies.

A cuppa revivied me but the cold really began to penetrate so I dotted in a couple of climbers some two-thirds of the way up the left-hand slope but could not see the third one at the time. Then I hurriedly included the cascade and rocks, though did not have enough paper left to do a proper job. This is just a basic rendering of the scene, but in a painting I would bring it to life with creative lighting, and not include quite so much detail, losing some with cloud or shadow.

This was something of a nostalgic return as I have had many wild adventures here, some of them extremely life-threatening, a fact that intensifies my love for this magical spot, one of the most impressive in the British mountains.

David Bellamy – Exploiting plastic food wrap in a watercolour

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The first snowfall of the winter arrived last Wednesday, and with glorious sunshine slanting across the landscape I abandoned all work and set off up into the hills. Familiar scenes lay transformed into jewels sparkling in the light. At one point I had a sudden urge to seek out a view at a point I had never stood before, a sort of premonition that I might find something exciting there. It was not far off the path, but about 200 yards across rough dead bracken covered in deep snow – ideal terrain to trip over and get a nice refreshing snow-bath.

When I reached the point there was no wonderful view, but as I turned back the scene before me really caught my imagination. It was a familiar abandoned house, but from a totally new angle, the whole image enhanced by the deep snow. It certainly brought it home to me that you can often find amazing new scenes simply by approaching the subject from a slightly different viewpoint.

One technique I sometimes use, mainly for foregrounds is that of covering an extremely wet wash with plastic food wrap, as I did here in the watercolour of highland deer that I came across in Glen Affric. In this instance I used Winsor blue, in places mixed with a touch of cadmium red, and varying the wash so that in places there was less strength in the colour, and even parts without any colour at all. You need to leave the food wrap in place until the wash dries completely. The method gives a spontaneous feel to the finished work. Experiment with various colours. It’s great fun to try this without any preliminary pencil work – you can do several examples at once – and when the work has dried you can see the optimum position to place your drawing before doing any further painting, and thus taking optimum opportunity of how the effect has developed.

This painting appears in my Winter Landscapes in Watercolour book and DVD, which you should find especially useful if you enjoy painting snow scenery. It is crammed with tips on how to bring sunshine into your paintings, creating misty effects wet in wet, transforming a scene by altering tonal effects, making the most of warm colours in winter, and much more. If you wrap up well, use a thin pair of gloves and carry one of those vacuum cups with warm coffee, you can make the most of a snow scene caught in the lovely low sunlight of a calm winter’s day. Leave the food wrap for the studio though!