'Barging Through' Rough Drawing

'Mason's Joy' is causing a lot of disharmony on the canal.

This will be the final painting in my series of animal characters influenced by 'The Wind In The Willows'.

The setting is based on Horton bridge, on the Kennett And Avon canal near Devizes. In order to get the appropriate photographic reference, I took a very nice five minute drive, with my son Arthur, down to the bridge. Then with my two year-old in a harness on my bag, I trooped around the tow path with my camera in hand. While I took photographs, Arthur commentated on his surroundings - he especially liked the boats but he didn't think much to the police-badger.

Woodland Party "Behind The Scenes"

I have recently completed a very complicated watercolour painting featuring a multitude of British wild animals having a good old 'knees up'!

I thought I would show you the various stages I went through in creating the scene. To begin with the sketching stage. I began with thumbnail sketches, I think I did only eight in total before I found a suitable viewpoint. It's very hard thumbnailing such a detailed scene so I just concentrated on working out where the viewer should be and then relied on the more detailed drawing to find my composition.

The rough drawing below was created by sketching out rough shapes without reference working from left to right. I deliberately allow the pencil to do the work and just see what happens as I make my way across the paper, otherwise if I plan ahead, my brain would probably explode in trying to cope with all the potential compositions, characters and actions I could create. Working this way is like rediscovering my original joy of drawing as a child - no clear plans just drawing for the sake of it.

Once the basic shapes are in then I start to refine with lots of reference to guide me. I had three separate folders of reference material on my desktop for this piece, one for animals, another for furniture and props and another for trees and woods. I sketched away with a 2B pencil and used a blending stump (or tortillion) to speed up the shading. Finally I ended up with the drawing below

The first rough before alterations, 44 x 30cm

The scanned rough was sent to my wonderful client, Olivier Souille and he came back with some useful alterations which helped to focus the scene more effectively and generally improve the overall composition. It's great to have somebody like Olivier, who has a fantastic artistic eye and can often diagnose the weaker points AND suggest correct remedies.

In short I discarded a selection of animals on the woodland floor (two hares, two chickens and a toad). These were acting as filler and by removing them gave the main characters, like the badgers and foxes more room to to be defined against a lighter background. I also adjusted the female otter's 'walk like an Egyptian' left arm, added a banjo playing mouse, repositioned a stool leg which was unfortunately placed (see drunken hare, ahem) and tweaked a dancing bunny's right paw.

Final approved rough

 The new rough was approved and I was ready to get painting.

TBC.

'Evening On The Lake'

I managed to finish this watercolour, 'Evening On The Lake', last night. Having said that when I got into the studio this morning I realised I had missed some whiskers for the characters in the immediate foreground.

That toad has just failed his driving test.

As you can see, I have included lots of overlapping elements in the painting in order to give a sense of movement and watery chaos. Based on their current positions I think just about every boat has the potential to crash into another vessel and not every person at the helm is paying due care and attention. There are also ducks and geese swooping in-between the maze of sails and steaming funnels - I find birds incredibly useful in breaking up a composition.

The overall colour gradually became very N.C Wyeth, not by design, the background just seemed to demand a rich golden haze as I started to build up the fells and tree lined banks. This did mean I kept washing varied amounts of cadmium yellow and yellow ochre continually on top of one another, which made the soft pencil on the top edge slightly bleed into the sky. Next time I'll go back to the trusty 3H made by Derwent (how very appropriate).

The Card Game (Over)

As promised here is the finished artwork of 'The Card Game'.

The Card Game

Watercolour / Gouache

24 x 31cm

Recently I've been trying to separate the foreground, middleground and background into three tonal values, light, mid-tone and dark. It's proved to be very useful, however when it comes to interior scenes the three stages can become very muddled. The background comes forward and pretty much takes over the middleground which leaves me with very difficult tonal decisions to make. I decided to place a soft spotlight on the card table so the light would highlight the figures seated facing the viewer also producing the highest contrast. This also means that the rat and stoat with their back to the viewer would be in shadow as the light would be hitting their fronts (which you cannot see). All that is left to play with is the mid-tone which I placed in on background vixen and badger, also notice that I reduced contrast not only on the characters at the back but also the barrels and spirits on the shelf above, not only to fit in with the 3 tone scheme but also to suggest a smoky haze in the air which would nullify extreme darks and lights.

In summary I now have dark on light on mid-tone. I'm sure if I were able to set this scene up and photograph in reality the shadows and tonal range would be completely different but that's where artistic licence comes in to save the day.

The overall intention of 'The Card Game' was to produce an image that at first glance appeared whimsical and pleasant. It wasn't until the viewer took their time to study the scene that they could see the game of cards is about to turn very sour indeed.

The Card Game Progression 2

Started glazing local colour and bringing out the values a bit more now but it's still in the ugly stage. Hopefully by the end of tomorrow I will be over the top of the hill and beginning my descent into the finished artwork valley.

The Card Game Progress

I've been working on a sepia under-painting today. This one will have lots of warm yellows, oranges and browns in it so sepia should emerge through the glazes of watercolour very nicely indeed.

'The Card Game' Idea

The last of my small roughs that has been approved (below). I still have a lot of working out to do (not in the gym, on my drawing board) before I even think about reaching for my brushes.

I hoping to give the viewer a bit of a shock in this one. At first glance it looks like a nice civilised game of cards in a warm pub, that is until you spot the stoats accusing look and small knife in his paw which he is about to brandish as the fox picks up is purse of winnings.

Captain Ratbeard

Captain Ratbeard

Watercolour & Gouache

24 x 31cm

Ahoy m'hearties! Shiver m'timbers and host the main sail (blimey I don't I'll keep this pirate talk going), if it isn't Captain Ratbeard and his pi-rat-ical crew (get it?). I nearly had as much fun painting the Captain as writing this blog post. Here is one of those few examples of when the finished piece is very similar to the fleeting image I had in my mind's eye.

The sea spray was achieved by flicking masking fluid with a toothbrush and a lot of the glossy highlights were with prussian blue and white gouache. I struggled with the wet deck but by studying lots of Wyeth and Howard Pyle pirate paintings I eventually found a simple way of suggesting a thin layer of water. 

Captain Ratbeard

This is a bit of a jump from my previous post 'Cheetah chase' (more on that later). Below you can see a detailed rough of the next animal painting to go with my recent series of work.

I've decided to call him Captain Ratbeard, his long beard is braided but unlike Blackbeard it's not smouldering - I didn't think his hairs would stay lit in such a terrible sea storm. I introduced a tilt to the composition to add a bit of tension (see Dan Dos Santos post on tilting), I especially like the fact his body is counterbalancing the roll of ship as any good pirate with sea legs (or leg) would do.

The rat in the background, ropes and swinging lantern also provide a contrasting diagonal to the lines of the mast and wooden deck deck. I am yet to decide which direction the rain will be falling, with the wave or opposing.

The strongest contrasting in value will be focussed on Ratbeard's face. He'll provide a strong silhouette with his dark fur and hat against the foamy wave beating against the stern in the background.

Above is the transferred and outlined pencil drawing on watercolour paper ready to be painted. Below you can see it is on the same piece of stretched paper as 'Cheetah Chase' which is why I have not scanned that finished painting and posted it on the blog. Instead I have taped a plastic sheet over it as protection and been very careful to cover any gaps that might let in stray watercolour as I paint Captain Ratbeard.