Thursday, 2 June 2011

Back to basics

I have been neglecting my watercolour painting a little recently but I have been using the time wisely. I know that I need to hone my observation and drawing skills before I can truly develop as a watercolour painter. Every accomplished artist will tell you that being able to see and record values is extremely important and will serve you well whatever your chosen medium. Only once you have that skill can you then develop your compositional skills, colour theory and painting techniques. That's how I see it anyway :)

To help me along the way towards becoming a better painter I've invested in what must be the cheapest of all art supplies - charcoal. I picked up a nice little boxed set of pencils, compressed and natural willow charcoal pieces for less than I normally spend on a single sketchbook:) I've been practicing with charcoal in all the different forms just to get to know how it behaves and so far I absolutely love it.

Just to take it a bit further I managed to do a little sketch on the way home from my work. I love to sit by the river but often find it difficult to pick a subject - there are so many I am spoiled for choice. This particular view of the house surrounded by willows and other trees by the river has often attracted me so with 30 mins to spare I sat down and drew it.


House by the willows


Finally, a big welcome to my latest follower Lucia B who has been one of my contacts on Flickr for quite a while. If you haven't already seen her lovely paintings of her home city of Firenze (Florence), then go take a look.  She always adds a little bit of historic background about each of the paintings that she posts. Thanks for following my blog, Lucia :)
Posted by at 21:30
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13 comments:

  1. Judy3 June 2011 at 08:20

    I think your composition and drawing skills are great! Love the sketch!

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  2. Lisa Le Quelenec3 June 2011 at 18:17

    Hi Michael, this sketch has a lovely range of tonal values and gestural marks. I like charcoal too for its immediacy. Is this sketch in your small sketchbook?

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  3. Unknown3 June 2011 at 18:28

    Thanks for your kind comments, Judy. I'm beginning to love this charcoal stuff but I need lots more practice to learn how it behaves :)

    Hi Lisa, thanks for following and for your kind comments. This was done in an A5 W&N Heavyweight sketchbook. It's really nice paper for the media I use (graphite, watercolour, charcoal) but the case-bound books seem to fall apart so I'm now using a wire-bound one :)

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  4. John (JWJarts)3 June 2011 at 19:15

    I really like this Michael and you have some excellent tones in there. Nice work.

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  5. Unknown3 June 2011 at 19:31

    Thank you John, I was a bit concerned that this did not read as well as the graphite sketches I did but the comments so far are quite positive. Have a good weekend!

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  6. Sandra Busby6 June 2011 at 16:58

    Oops! Almost missed this one! I'm glad I checked because it is gorgeous!

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  7. Unknown6 June 2011 at 18:51

    Thank you, Sandra. The trouble with posting too close together is that a lot of people miss earlier posts so how very sweet of you for going back and commenting:)

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  8. Anita6 June 2011 at 19:55

    Michael - this is very nicely done - great values. A tip I have learned for charcoal is not starting with white paper. Tone your paper all over with the charcoal, rubbing it into the paper with kitchen towel or something similar. The draw into it with charcoal to create your darks, and draw with a rubber (eraser) to get your lighter values.

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  9. Unknown6 June 2011 at 21:10

    Thanks, Anita, and a big thank you too for popping over to give me some great advice. I'll give that a go next time. Sounds much better to me than using a neutral paper for the middle values - I don't like the texture of pastel papers.

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  10. Unknown8 June 2011 at 07:44

    I like how you have managed a whole range of tonal values in this one Michael.

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  11. Unknown8 June 2011 at 08:50

    Thank you, Sue. Yes, I love how you can get the whole range easier with charcoal:)

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  12. Ingrid Ormestad11 June 2011 at 06:39

    This is really lovely Michael. :)

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  13. Unknown11 June 2011 at 06:51

    Thank you again, Ingrid. This was my first attempt at using charcoal outside so I was very happy with how well it turned out :)

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