Adventures In A Painted Landscape

We have been away camping again. It has been interesting getting used to living indoors after spending nearly two weeks in a tent. This is my favourite beach, in a mystery location! I also made another sketch near here, well more of a diagram as I only happened to have a tiny diary with me at the time. Strangely, the ‘diagram’ brings back more memories than this oil pastel. I hope to make my diagram into a painting but it will be a bit of an experiment working from something that’s mostly in my head. I really admire artists who can paint what’s in their mind’s eye as in my case it usually turns out to be a ‘frightful daub’ (which could say something about my mind, I suppose)!

oil pastel sketch of the beach

I’ve just returned from a week’s camping and walking in the Lakes, where I made some frenzied marks in my tiny A6 sketchbook using oil pastels … could be a painting in there somewhere, but I really need to go back.

view from my tent - Patterdale campsite

the view from Helvellyn

a view from Crinkle Crags

from the top of Crinkle Crags

I’ve been out sketching again. At the moment we’re having a lot of sunny but cold days and I’ve been finding there’s just enough time to sum up a scene in pencil before going completely numb. The Howgills continue to elude me. They have fabulous shapes that resemble sleeping forms (I think human, but they’re famously supposed to be elephants) but they’re so huge it’s difficult to know how to fit them into a picture without losing the mass. The sketch below was made in a lonely valley that I love. I’m trying to learn its shape and work out what to do with it. The second sketch was just capturing a lovely moment sitting on a strip of a path somewhere very high up in the sun.

'sleeping' form in pencil, A6

on Crook fell, pencil A6

Continuing the ’something and something’ title theme …

Quite a lot of Cumbria is flooded at the moment. Thankfully, we have fared quite well, being on a hill and far enough from any rivers.

My watercolour experiments have become a bit more indoor in nature due to the lack of daylight caused by living inside an enormous cloud. And I’m not yet ready to share them, especially the demonic self-portrait and the one that looks like a huge meringue in the sky (I think the weather may be having psychological effects).

But I thought I would share two scribbly biro pictures, because there’s something very satisfying about being spontaneous and grabbing the nearest pen and scrap of notepaper to practise drawing.

So here are sleeping husband (with apologies) and sleeping dog (she doesn’t care).

Sleeping Husband In Biro

Sleeping Dog In Biro

I’ve just returned from Skye again – my third visit in six months. I’m visiting a lot more than usual because my sister is very ill and I want to see as much of her as I can while she’s still here. I have some photos to post of Staffin beach, a recently finished larger painting and some drawing exercises that I’ve been doing lately, but I’m too tired to do all that tonight so will finish this tomorrow. I do feel very guilty that my blog is so neglected and admire those who post frequently and interestingly while I just ramble.

Off to Berlin next week so the blog will be even more neglected – oh well! I hope to come back with some sketches though. At the moment I’m keen to practise my drawing and really want to take the painting in a new direction – it’s not quite what I want it to be yet, if that makes sense. I wish I had the skills to paint what I can see in my head.

Here are the pictures:
Staffin beach first …

Staffin beach

a watery view

recently completed oil on canvas, A2

pencil still life, A1

Sketches made at the side of the road, face flushed and heart still hammering away, might look like this:

above Dent Head Viaduct - A6 pencil sketch

Whereas sketches made after walking up a hill, steadily climbing at a gentler pace, can look more like this:

Garsdale from Winder - A6 pencil sketch

Now, I don’t think my experiment shows much difference in drawing style between the two so any sense of liveliness in the sketches must come from a response to the landscape itself, which is nice.

Today I rather by accident decided to look at the landscape upside-down (just by leaning over rather than any acrobatics!) and was amazed at how the colours seemed different and the shapes of the clouds and hills much more solid, with a great impression of depth. So the next experiment is to sketch upside down. If it’s any good I’ll attempt a painting as well.

Finally, here’s a painting created in the studio as a result of the first sketching session:

Painting of Dent Head By Night - oil on canvas, 9x12