Sketching between showers

Up in Lochcarron again, but the weather not so good.  Making the most of the spells when the rain and snow let up.  Indoors, I was reviewing a little watercolour I did on the last visit - put it into a small frame and it looks not too bad. Sometimes things surprise you.  I painted this from a pen and ink sketch I did in the Coulags in January.  Peter likes it!

A Little Group of Birches

But I was restless to go outdoors, and the weather was a little less grey yesterday. I felt that I needed to get out and gather some sketches while I'm here.  So when the sun came out I ventured over to the shore with my sketch pad.

Yellow Boat

This little yellow boat bobs about in the navy blue sea and rests at low tide in the umber colours of the seaweed.  But, looking at the sky, I wasn't confident that I would get time for a colour sketch.  So I started with charcoal.  Then it was back to my favourite subject - Slumbay. Using graphite this time.

Slumbay Sketch

I'm always striving for that perfect sketch of Slumbay - not sure if I'll ever get to that point.  I was also thinking about foregrounds and how to make the right marks to capture these in a more interesting way.  Then I remembered that I also wanted to try out a new sepia sketching pen, so I progressed on to ink, still thinking about foregrounds. The pen was good for drawing clumps of seaweed, I thought.

Seabank Cottage with Boat (and seaweed clumps)

However, this was as far as I got before the rain started again.  I thought this last one was a composition with some potential for a small picture so I may go back and sketch this again. I'm hoping to get a little more sketching before the end of the week...fingers crossed.

Every Picture Tells a Story

In the studio today - had missed a few days.  Last Friday I tried to go out sketching - faint hope! Beaten back by some ferocious rain showers.  So it was back in the studio today, working on the thumbnails again.  I decided to focus on a picture of a tree, a boat and the shore.

Now the last time I was in, I had worked up a picture mostly in black and white.  I started with this.

 I realise now looking at the photos again that when I started out on this theme I had given quite a bit of thought to composition, and abstract values.  I forgot about this when I was in the studio - I can see it now!

Anyway, after making that start, I progressed through these steps.

So this is how it looked this morning.  What I thought I'd do was to start a coloured version and do a dark sky and sea.  So I pulled out a piece of paper which already had some colour on it, and I made a fresh start, forgetting all about my abstract values (of course).

I paused after this start cos' I found the sketchyness with the bold colours really interesting.  Maybe I shouldn't do exactly what I had planned.  So I tried carefully adding some blue (mixture of ultramarine and quindacrone blue.  I was thinking about layering up carefully.

This is still pretty sketchy and I did like that quality about it, but on I wanted to continue with darkening the sky and the sea.

Finally I added some green and sorted the sky out.

Now, as usual, there are some things I like about this, and some things that could be better.  I like the little cloud, and I like the colour of the far away hill.  Does the green island/promontory work?  I'm not sure - maybe it's confusing.  I like to boat colour and the shadow, but I wonder if the boat is too big in relation to the tree.  And above all, what has happened to my abstract values?  Doh!

But I'm going to be positive.  I think this is a good start to some 'picture-making', which I've decided is to be my theme for the autumn.  I want to get away from just re-painting sketches.  I want to make pictures, and pictures have to tell a bit of a story.  I think there IS a little story in this picture, so that's why I think I'm going along the right lines......just not there yet.....

Sorry not to have updated this with the end result of the course.  I worked a few ideas up in the sketchbook.  I was trying to bring a few ideas together - not something I've really done before - and I thought I ought to try this.   I ended up doing this little picture which brought together my figure on the museum balcony with the Newhaven lighthouse.  There may be something here I could develop, but I haven't yet done so.

Lighthouse Woman Study.

The other image I worked on was the skiff.  I did a very big picture of this which started out looking like this.

Newhaven Skiff (big emerging picture)

This was really underpainting, so when I took it further, I did tone it down somewhat.

Newhaven Skiff (big picture)

But in taking it further I lost all the energy of the marks.  It looks a bit boring.  I wasn't all that happy with it
Not to be put off by this, I tried another version in the studio this week.  It ended up looking like this.

Newhaven Skiff (small version)

I think this looks more interesting.  I'm quite pleased with the edge of the pier (I did focus a bit of attention on this).  Maybe the boat needs a bit more colour before I set it aside.  But it does have a dreamyness about it.

Ah well...what next?  More sketching perhaps.  And there's a trip coming up a week on Friday at Crammond, so that means more boats...!