summer sketchbooks

Some extracts from summer sketchbooks, with more to follow over the next few weeks...

An ever-stretching wild river meadow of dandelions with fields of yellow oil-seed rape beyond, sweltering in the golden light of mid-summer, the river deep and fast behind me.
This was worked up from an in-situ sketch as preparatory work for a painting on canvas. I've started to work in a bigger format (A3 sketchbook) in an attempt to ease the transition from living in my sketchbook to stand-alone work.

Severn valley, Shropshire; 82cm x 30cm; inks, watercolour & enamels on gesso (Fiona)

This sunflower sketch was an experiment in using Ecoline watercolour inks. I bought a set a few years ago and have never really got to grips with them, mainly because I'm used to making a limited palette work hard, and tend to avoid brilliant colours.  However, the vibrancy of these inks really comes into its own using pen and wash. The subsequent Indian ink washes and cool conte crayon  work as a counter-balance.

sunflower; 30cm x 41cm; inks & conte crayon (Fiona)

bleached treetrunk, Himley Hall; 30cm x 41cm; inks, aquarelle & conte crayon (Fiona)

I sketched this old dead tree trunk in the teeth of a very brisk north wind, so worked quickly with a broad bamboo pen and various inks, flinging it all around in order to complete the entire sketch in about 15 minutes. That way I could get back quickly into the warm sunshine... but also a great way to free up a drawing and work expressively.

drawing as printing (2)

Following on from a previous post, 'drawing as printing', I said I would return to the topic to describe the materials and process with pictures.
 
Materials:

-2 pieces of cartridge or drawing paper. I cut mine to approx 8" x 8".
-soft pastels or chalk in pale shades
-oil pastels
-drawing tools e.g. ball-point pen, hard pencil, chopstick, stick, the wrong end of a brush.. experiment with mark-making using different tools.

 1) using soft pastels, cover one of your pieces of paper entirely with colour. It doesn't matter which colours you choose.

2) choose some oil pastels and steadily rub them on top of the soft pastel surface until the whole surface is covered. A fairly generous hand is required. Irregular shapes will be most effective, the more random the better. Overlap the colours to soften transitions and mix colours on the paper. Here I've chosen 5 colours: dark blue, pale blue, lemon, ochre and a mid-green.

3) On a flat surface, take your coloured paper and place it face-down onto a clean piece of paper.

4) At this stage you can either take some time to experiment with different drawing tools or choose a subject/pattern and plunge right in. 

5) Taking a page from my sketchbook as inspiration, I choose to draw the shell on the right.

6) Working into the back of my coloured paper, I use a ball-point pen to do a simple outline drawing of the shell based on the sketchbook image. A firm line and simplified form works best. Here I've varied the weight of the line slightly to emphasise the basic shape.







7) Happy with the drawing, now I'm ready to see what's been happening underneath. I peel back the paper to reveal an oil pastel monoprint. You can see how the random colour placement magically gives form and interest to a fairly ordinary outline drawing.

 The negative image is also interesting....

...but if you don't want to keep it, then you can continue using the coloured 'plate' until exhausted.

Here's another monoprint taken from the same coloured plate, this time of dried honesty seedheads. The drawn lines as less distinct in places but the image still works.
 

The negative image is now breaking up, but could make a very interesting texture to work into as it is, or to cut up and use as collage, or to paint over... wherever your creativity takes you. Never throw anything away!

If you experiment with this technique we'd love to see your work. Post a pic on your own blog and leave a comment here with the link. We'll drop by and visit.

sketching in Wales

Porthdinllaen in north-west Wales in March this year. A secluded beach, a comfortable cottage right on the shore; clear skies, balmy weather, the sea a smooth sheet of glass reflecting blues from turquoise through azure to ultramarine; daffodils, pale sand and views of distant mountains. Gorgeous.

We travelled on Wednesday and came back on Friday, taking enough paints and paper to last each of us at least a year. Two cars were required to carry it all. The driver who knew the way got lost on the way but quickly recovered. The other driver didn't know the way but followed all the correct roads instinctively.

We sketched and painted all day, fish supper for tea, walked along the beach afterwards by starlight, enjoyed ourselves so much that the next day our sides were hurting from laughing. A wonderful two days.

Sue

Jane

Tina

 
Click here to see more sketches.