Exercise - A limited palette study from your sketches

Taken the sketches of the Castle pub, turning them into more finished drawings using limited colour.


Water soluble pencil and coloured pencil:
 

Ink (bamboo dip pen) and oil pastels:

Limited but warmer palette, red of the brick work blended into both the blue of the sky and grey of the road, stronger contrast of dark tones.

Conscious that neither of these drawings dealt with perspective, not that I saw this as an issue but decided to tackle the building using two point perspective.. get to a point where I had captured the basic form:

Exercise - A sketchbook of townscape drawings

Up early one Sunday morning, to sketch some of the older buildings at the north end of the high street.  Drawing of the Castle pub,  pavement runs up the wall (building sits partially below the pavement level) on the left hand side of building which appears make the perspective out of kilter with rest of the drawing.

Overcast day no strong cast in tones, darkest areas some of the window panes, and partially obscured door.


Sketch in pencil:

Colour reference:

Brickwork, upper floor,  redder than suggested than the colour used below  some green(moss) on the  roof but too subtle to be of any concern here. Light greyish blue lower floor purposely used dark blue in the sky to make a distinction between the two blues used here.

Research point - Impressionist landscape painters

This research point asks to look at the work of painters linked to the impressionist movement, or this implied by the names listed: Monet,  Pissarro and  Cezanne. If names hadn't been given I am sure I would have immediately thought of Monet  (Rouen Cathedral, Haystacks and roads lined with poplars) as an artist who worked on a series from single landscape/subject.

In-line with the principles of the impressionist movement  (disregard for the academic standards of the time... subject matter and the finesse of the completed work) Monet looked to capture the "moment" light, colour and movement. The "moment" can change based on both the lighting and weather conditions and this is best demonstrated by doing a series of the same landscape/subject.

Advances in the way oil paint could be stored (tin tubes) and transport (train networks) meant that painting en plain air had become more practical. But the challenge of completing the work before the lighting and or weather conditions dramatically changed still remained, the artist had to work quickly giving the work spontaneity an impression of the moment.

Research point - Works of Claude Lorrain and Turner - fore, middle and background

Claude  Lorrain was key in popularising Landscapes in the mid/late 17th century in Europe. The main reason for this was the way he added impact by overemphasizing the atmospheric perspective. Looking at his paintings, of romanticised landscapes, the treatment/balance of light and dark in the compositions would appear to be a priority for him... dark foreground trees in shadow, mid-ground blue haze of hills or buildings lit by the the sun on the horizon the lightest area of the painting in the background.

Earlier paintings of Turner are very similar are to those of Lorrain in both there subject matter and their approach to aerial perspective, with Turner keeping the darks of the trees in the foreground.  In his later work's Turner continues to explorer light in his paintings without feeling constrained by the romanticised settings for example Snow Storm,  Steam Boat off Harbour's Mouth.


Sketchs I have produced of some of the work's of Lorrain and Turner which use the contrast of light and dark, chiaroscuro, to add depth and strength to their work


Lorrain - Landscape with Hager and the Angel

Lorrain - Landscape at dusk

Lorrain - Apollo guarding the herds of Admetus

Turner  - Temple of Jupiter

Turner  - Linlithgow palace

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Exercise - Angular perspective

In this sketch, of an imagined hut, I am trying to get to grips with two point perspective. Think I made up my own  rules when it came to adding the roof, that said I think it is in keeping with the rest of the  hut. 

Having an understanding of these rules of perspective when drawing pictures where you want to add both a sense of volume and depth is important...brings more realism to the composition.  

Will reluctantly keep the ruler close to hand...

Exercise - Parallel perspective - an interior view

Open door leading into the kitchen. Issues with the bottom one of the kitchen units.

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Exercise - Study of several trees

Tree lined street, building and people in street quickly render with an artist's sketch pen and the trees add with a bamboo dip pen. Using the trees here to help enhance the  sense of depth and perspective.

Two oaks in some local woods. The dark detailed drawing of the tree on left, in the foreground, allowing less of a need, I believe,  to add detail to the trees in the mid and background.

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Exercise - Larger study of an individual tree

Water soluble pencil drawing of a large oak tree in some wood very close to where I live:

Exercise - Sketching an individual tree

Sketches of the small cherry tree in my back garden.


Pencil and biro:

Water-soluble pencil:

Coloured pencil:

Charcoal:

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Exercise - Study of a townscape using line

Sketch of  Prezzo's in Tunbridge Wells using an artist pen.  Tried to keep the marks linear even in the blocking in of the dark areas (e.g. window panes)

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