Category Archives: Sketching in winter

David Bellamy – Gearing up for sketching outdoors

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As we pass from autumn into winter it’s a time of year when many artists seem to go into hibernation, especially if there are no local art classes to encourage them. When I wrote my latest book Winter Landscapes in Watercolour my aim was to encourage people to take a serious look at the countryside in winter, and if possible to get out and record the scenes in sketches or with a camera. The winter landscape can be breath-takingly beautiful, a time of year when you can find some of the most dramatic and often simple compositions that almost beg to be painted. So how do you make the most of this exciting time of year?

 If you keep an eye on the weather forecast you might get some idea of what’s to come, but they seem to get it so wrong so often that it pays to be prepared for those glorious days when conditions are just right, whether snow is on the ground or not. If it takes you an hour or more to get your art gear together then you may well have lost the best part of the day, so having all your kit ready for action is vital. As far as keeping warm and dry is concerned, you can see in the photo that I am wrapped up in a warm fleece jacket, a warm sheepskin hat, scarf and thin gloves in which I can sketch quite happily. My trousers are lined, I have woollen socks and boots, thermal vest and inside the rucsack is my waterproof outer gear, a long neck tube which can cover not just my neck but up over my head as well, if need be, a steel thermos flask, mug, etc, so that I can make soup, coffee, tea, cappuccinos, the lot. I’m there to enjoy myself, so why not?

My sketching gear varies from time to time, but in less-than perfect conditions it’s best to keep it really simple so that you can work speedily. I mainly sketch on hardback cartridge books, even in watercolour, as it dries quickly on the smooth paper unless conditions are truly damp. I take several soft-grade pencils along, including water-soluble ones which can suggest a lovely mood. They are especially effective for suggesting snow conditions. A range of four or five brushes is adequate, and often I use just one on a sketch. I also carry around a plastic aquash brush which holds its own water reservoir in the handle. You only need a few colours. I prefer half-pans when working out of doors, rather than tubes, as they are all ready for action once I open the box, which has its own integral palette.

Finally, it’s also a great idea to have some plan of where you intend to go. I like to plan for different locations for different conditions. If the heavy rain has stopped, seeking out waterfalls in spate might be worthwhile. Hoar frost on trees may not settle for long, so in that case it would be vital to be out quickly into the trees. Snow can totally transform all kinds of landscape, which can give you a wide choice, but a thin covering can quickly disappear, and it may be all you get all winter!

One last tip: try to get a 20-minute walk in before you sketch and you’ll find you can cope much easier than if you just stumble out of the warm car to start sketching or painting. So, with winter upon us, now is the time to sort out all that gear and be ready for those good days. Don’t forget, afterwards you can treat yourself to tea and cakes and really feel you’ve achieved something. Oh, and don’t forget that camera…..

David Bellamy – The negative painting technique in watercolour

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This weekend we had our annual watercolour seminar in Pontypool, and as usual we had a very enthusiastic audience. It’s always good when lots of questions are forthcoming and people create a real buzz with their obvious excitement about indulging in watercolour painting and learning new techniques. When they can see the techniques being demonstrated close-up on the screen it really fires them up.

One of the techniques I was questioned about this weekend was that of the negative painting method. In watercolour, because it is a transparent medium and we cannot effectively paint a light colour over a dark one, we need to resort to other ways of working. We can use masking fluid, which reserves the white paper, but can be clumsy at times. Another method is to rub a candle across the paper to form a resist, but this is hopeless if you need intricate detail. A third technique is to paint gouache or acrylic over the dark area, but here the opaque paint can appear intrusive often losing that lovely sense of watercolour transparency and spontaneity.

The picture shows part of a painting mainly completed out of doors. It reveals a number of negative painting examples: the trunk and branches of the birch tree; the right-hand boulder; where the dead bracken stands out against the dark background; and the edges of the falling and turbulent water. The sole method I have used here for each of these examples is to work round each feature with a darker colour. In the case of the red bracken, this was painted on first, allowed to dry, and then the dark background wash brought down to describe the birch tree, the boulder, the water and of course, the red bracken.

This techniques is extremely effective and well worth learning. I don’t normally put quite so much negative work into one painting, but this was meant as an illustration on how to apply it, and can be seen on my Painting Winter Landscapes DVD, which accompanies the book with the same title. For more information see my website or that of APV Films who produced the film.

David Bellamy – Making the most of the winter landscape

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Like boy scouts, we should always be well prepared as artists, for those moments when the weather and atmosphere create stunning effects that we simply cannot ignore. This means not just carrying sketchbook and camera around with us when we’re in the great outdoors, but being ready to venture out at short notice when a little seasonal magic appears. At this time of year I’m always aware that snow may well fall at any time on the hills and mountains, and if this coincides with those flaming autumn colours we have stunning possibilities for superb landscape paintings, so keep an eye on them there hills!

In this watercolour of the Applecross Mountains the contrast in colour temperature between the foreground and the background is striking. You can, of course beef up the warm colours well into winter if you don’t want your compositions to appear to cold overall. In this painting, which you will find on a larger scale in my book Winter Landscapes in Watercolour, the mountain details have been rendered in cool blues, apart from where the low sunlight is catching the higher parts. In the sunlit features I dropped in a touch of light red while the dark crags were still wet, and this also helps to place more emphasis on certain parts of the scene.

During the change of seasons be ready for this effect and look out for it in your local landscapes. Be prepared to move around to set those lively warm colours against the cool mountains and snow. It will really bring your work to life.

 

There are still places left on my seminar in Pontypool on Saturday 1st November, on painting winter landscapes in watercolour, and it includes a full demonstration and an illustrated talk on creating exciting winter scenes, with a great many examples of different types of landscape. It is aimed at preparing you for painting the winter landscape both indoors and outdoors, and making the most of this fascinating season. Check it out on my website. In the meantime, enjoy your painting!

David Bellamy – Sketching a bridge through trees

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I’ve just returned from a sketching trip to the English Lake District, having experienced a variety of weather conditions, making for some interesting and varied sketching outdoors. The best day was when I climbed to the summits of the Coniston peaks on a sunny day. I aimed initially for Swirl How, from which there are marvellous views all round, and at that level extensive snow made them even more impressive. I was perfectly happy sitting in the snow painting a watercolour sketch and sipping a coffee with hardly a breath of wind. When I moved further south along the ridge and looked back the southern aspects of the mountains were completely devoid of snow. Had I done the trip the other way round I’d have been really disappointed with the views northwards.

The sketch I’m showing, though, is one done in light rain, using a watersoluble pencil on a cartridge pad. As you can see it has quite a few notes and a slightly different view of the bridge itself from higher up, at the top of the page. From my position below the falls the bridge was mainly obscured by branches – in summer it would have been impossible to see, but by moving around a little I was able to piece together the main bridge structure, reducing the number of branches.

I then moved higher up, almost on a level with the bridge, and drew in the details as seen at the top of the page. This explained the structure of its rather unusual, but attractive shape, and was helpful even though the perspective was naturally quite different from the first drawing. I backed it up with photographs, but this is a case which clearly shows the advantage of a drawing, both for the main overall subject, and those little bits of detail that can lend an authentic feeling to your work.

You can find the lovely old bridge on the track up to the Coniston Coppermines Valley, where it levels out, but take care as there are steep and deep drops into Church Beck. I’m glad to say that I’ve now handed my book on painting winter landscapes over to my publisher, to be published in the autumn, but this one sketch gives you a good idea of the advantages of getting out there before all that dreaded greenery arrives!

Sketching in remote places

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I’ve just returned from a trip to South Greenland with my friend Torben Sorensen, hence the lack of blog posts over the past month. Our objective was to sketch and paint the spectacular mountains near Nanortalik, which is about 45 miles north-west of Cape Farewell, the southernmost tip of Greenland. To gain access to the area we hired an inflatable zodiac to go up Tasermiut fjord, a 50-mile stretch with stunning peaks on either side: a rather crazy idea as neither of us had ‘driven’ such a boat before, and perhaps when we found it had a hole in the bottom we should probably have abandoned the idea rapidly.

We carried on, and had to do quite a bit of baling out, as well as heaving the craft over rocks and beaches at anything but high tide. Sunny weather blessed us most of the time, but clouds and cloud streamers added greatly to the atmosphere. When you can see everything the view tends to lose its aura of mystery.

Watercolour, of course, is supreme in conveying a sense of atmosphere. This is a rough watercolour sketch of icebergs near Cape Farewell, done on cartridge paper, which generally dries rather quickly and so makes laying complicated watercolour washes quite difficult, as in this case where I’ve had to work the darker sky round the light foreground berg. Even wetting the paper first still leaves one prone to ugly brushmarks across the cartridge paper. However, as it’s just a sketch this doesn’t matter. The important thing was to capture the subtle colours in the ice, the slightly darker overall tones on the further skyscraper-like icebergs, and a general sense of the atmosphere. At the same time I wanted to suggest the coldness of the Arctic sea. These aspects are difficult to render with a pencil.

I regard sketches as working documents which will give me all the information I need to complete a full watercolour painting at home. Photographs help a lot, but often lose the subtleties of tone and colour that is needed to produce an authentic portrait of the scene. And naturally, being out in the natural wilderness sketching is a wonderful therapy, especially when you know that you really don’t have to exhibit the result!