I have been fascinated by the sky drama recently, walking my usual paths but with my eyes raised up to encounter some serious cloud phenomena. Glad to have been able to witness them ;-), especially as they developed over just a few minutes. It is rewarding to be outside whenever possible, having a simple camera at hand (or a smartphone, of course) to catch these fleeting glimpses of nature´s magic & awe. Those sure are my glimmers in everyday life which sure has its challenges – for all of us.
Slowly I am also getting myself acquainted with another camera, a Nikon, which will take a while. So far I used a rather simple digital camera with just a few technical installments and settings to consider. So we´ll see how much my patience is tested when learning how to use the larger camera in a way that does not frustrate me too quickly, and how the intentionality of the photo taking suits me….so far, my intentionality in this respect comprised “I take my camera with me and will take pictures of views I like”. With the larger camara it will be a bit different – but I am open to try it out with a beginners´ mindset and patience for the zillions of possible settings it offers for taking photos. Too many options can be daunting. So I am glad that I am (at present) only interested in landscapes.
So here are some recent photos I took when outdoors cycling, near the local river Hunte and the crossing river Lethe, as well as just around the area exploring the countryside. I´ve lived here for about 6,5 years now, and even though I really enjoy the landscape I do make an effort to try new roads, find new short cuts etc to get some new views & impressions on my trips. Often I do this with painting subjects in mind, but also just to calm my fomo. There is the need of a bit of a change of scenery when a vacation is not possible at present.
Today I was lucky to get some great moody skies at the river with some dark rain clouds, and yes I did get wet but just for a few minutes and it did not hinder me to carry on taking photos – it was a very nice trip with a fab atmosphere and I enjoyed the colours and contrasts a lot as well as the fresh air. Especially this spring / summer I find the river area unbelievably idyllic, I am not sure why – I always appreciated the area a lot but recently I was and am quite enthusiastic about the glorious atmosphere, the various flowers and grasses and shrubs, lush green everywhere, amazing willow trees. Just wonderful! We also had some wild geese – their cute little ones were busily exploring the water and looking for mischief.
I guess some of the photos I took today will end up being references for some new paintings.
river Hunteriver Hunte river Hunteleft hand side of the riverriver Hunte
Same location but some months past…
river Hunteriver Hunteriver Hunte, late afternoon sunriver Lethe, late afternoon sun
And these I took a few weeks ago, I painted the view (see my last blogpost).
if you live in Europe I guess you are affected by the heatwave and I do hope you are holding up ok & found some adequate ways to stay cool and in good health.
We do suffer a bit here in northern Germany from the abnormal temperatures, but the weather should be less extreme come monday if we can believe the forecast. So life is slow at present, and to bring us into a vision of cooler air, a stiff breeze at the sea and lush greens at the river I have these new watercolour paintings for you as well as some of the results of some recent and wonderful pleinair stints around my local walking / cycling grounds. Sitting at the river in the shade with a bit of wind and as little human noise as possible sure is a bliss when painting / sketching in plein air! And I was lucky to find those conditions from time to time, as well as feeling very lucky to have access to some pretty paintable views. After about an hour I usually call it a day – it is quite a challenge to concentrate on the work for longer while not sitting all that comfortably and periodically fighting off bugs and other inquisitive “wildlife” – but I absolutely LOVE it and find it one of the most enjoyable activities I can think of. Highly recommended!
These three plein air paintings in my watercolour sketchbook I got almost 100% finished on location.
Canon Beach in Oregon, USA. a4-format Bockingford-paper, based on a tutorial by Geoff KerseyThe Old Harry Rocks in Dorset,UK. a4-format Bockingford-paper, based on a tutorial by Geoff KerseyLady Bower Reservoir in Derbyshire, UK. a4-format Bockingford-paper, based on a tutorial by Geoff Kersey Eilean Donan Castle in Scotland, UK. a4-format Bockingford-paper, based on a tutorial by Geoff Kersey
Lake District View, UK. a3-format Bockingford-paper, based on a tutorial by Geoff Kersey
Recently, spontanously I got out my old old acrylic paints for a change of my usual painting medium – this small painting on wood panel is based on a photo I took when cycling – and being aware of a storm approaching. The strong colour contrasts where very appealing and it was fun to paint.
I would like to wish you some calm and cozy Holidays and a good, creative New Year.
Here are some of my newest watercolour paintings, mostly in a smaller / A4-Format, which I enjoyed and will continue to use mainly. There was also some testing of different types of watercolour paper.
I also had some really impressive photo-ops of amazing skies lately on my usual walks, I might post them another time.
All in all, for me it was and still is a very very challenging year healthwise, in creative terms though very good, art is my main, steady go-to mental health support.
I re-joined an online tutorial-platform I had enjoyed a lot last year, and it feels it pays off in some ways. I kindof dip in and out for a few months at a time, as I feel restricted fast and am keen on going my own way – which, I have to say, also does work well in that community of that platform: I made most of the recent tutorial paintings “mine”, meaning I went my own way with it quite distinctly.
The members are an awesome friendly bunch of people, encouraging + generous with feedback and also with constructive criticism. In terms of painting subjects, I still tend to feel very enthusiastic about the “English Countryside”, Scotland and Wales and very much want to visit for some intense plein air painting there, and take photographs while hiking.
Fairfield Church, Romney Marsh (UK) – a subject painted also by Rowland Hilder, a great watercolour artistCromford Canal, Derbyshire (UK) with an abandoned old industrial structureTwo cabins in Glencoe, Scotland
Hello there. It´s been a while. Life felt quite rough & unfriendly for the last months. Fortunately, I always can & do turn to art in its many forms to feel better. I´ve been exploring plein air painting a few times lately – hugely enjoyed it as it got me out of my head and into the wild. And I spontaneously bought myself some inexpensive gouache paints to try out – and really like it! It is relatively easy to use and I especially enjoy it on toned mixed media paper to give the painting a really fresh sketchy easygoing atmosphere which I am aiming for in my paintings anyway.
This sketchy easygoing imperfect approach I am eager to apply in my plein sessions where I keep the sketching time really short and focused on the learning as such. I aim to blend out all the sounds, the wind, splashing fish, quacking ducks, inquisitive insects – you name it, I encountered it. I do get overwhelmed relatively easy, am quite impatient, have high expectations on the outcome of my painting….all that is tested when plein air painting. BUT – sooo worth it! I love to immerse myself in nature while doing something I really enjoy, like painting / photographing / riding a horse / walking a dog…so the last two options are no options at present, but the first two are. And I also am getting more courageous, not letting myself be hindered by the chance some curious people might chat to me when painting. This week, after an appointment in town which was quite tiring, I ended up on a comfy bench under beautifully drooping branches with a view on the gloriously blooming garden area of our local castle, with quite a few people around – and no one bothered me! I needed this little positive experience to gather my confidence to do what I want to do again and again. So I sketched the many flowers and trees there in the sun, and will return for sure.
So here is some of the artwork I created in the last months:
The first two are in watercolour.
Plein air at the river Lethe in watercolour – a 4 format sketchbook, watercolour paperFinished painting. Corrections on the perspective on the right hand side, some enhanced colouring, workings on the contrasts.Finished plein air painting at the river Lethe in gouache, a5 format, grey toned watercolour paper. Moody skies – gouache painting of the river Hunte, double a5 format. The river Lethe is behind us, it runs under the Hunte. Same view and format in watercolour
When I started exploring gouache I also turned – to Turner! Still enthusiastic about his work, I did some “copies” of some of his paintings where I felt gouache on toned mixed media paper would work really well & be a lot of fun. He is known to have loved to paint on blue paper (especially moonlight-scenes). It seems not possible to get such strong blue watercolour paper nowadays – but lovely greyblue toned mixed media paper. So tadaaa: here I used it with gouache and the colours jumped right at me! So gratifying.
The first is based on his “The Scarlet Sunset” which he painted on the formentioned blue paper – and which I have painted in watercolour on grey toned paper some time ago, too.
The second is based on his “Dinant from the Roche à Bayard” .
These are very quick and loose sketches which took only a few minutes, using the gouache almost without any water added.
I still am obsessed with “copying” Turner…
Here I did one of the tree studies based on one of his, offered in the brilliant book “How to paint like Turner”. Again – very quick and with gusto. Great fun!
The second is loosely based on a painting in another (not Turner-related) book, where I especially liked if and how to paint a moody sky with such opaque paints.
Here I turned to one of my other passions – NEW ZEALAND! I am constantly longing to travel… ah well, one day it will happen again. I feel lucky I already can tick off two boxes on my (not really existing) bucket list of travel: I´ve been to NZ – TWICE! ;-). Next would be mostly in the UK: the Peak District, the Lake District, Wales, Scotland. And then… maybe Scandinavia… oh and some of the National Parks in the US…and Canada…
Abel Tasman NP in NZ – gouache on greybrown mixed media paper.Abel Tasman NP in NZ – gouache on sandybrown mixed media paper.
So that´s it for today´s post. I wish you a good & creative weekend.
So here is some of the artwork I did over the last months, the newest is a large size painting from my anglophile “series” based on tutorial / suggestions from a recent tutorial site.
This is a nice typical English inn somewhere in Derbyshire, I am quite happy how the sky turned out as for the last trials of several paintings, very little turned out to my liking.
These sketches are from the winter months – I still like to turn to my sketchbook for a convenient size when I like to keep it smaller and simpler.
This is a place I´d like to visit one day, Mount St. Michael. So I am back at “traveling on paper” partly out of necessity… I have been rather downcast the last months and would love to go hiking somewhere and / or explore some new and interesting cultural sites, and simply just to “get away from it all” for some weeks. This is not an option at present, so I keep to my painting practice and get outside whenever possible to appreciate the local outdoors which is fine, and rearranged some of my furniture to now enjoy a more comfy reading place / place to watch a movie from time to time in my living room.
This watercolour painting is based on a reference pic supplied by the instructor of my latest tutorial and I did stick quite closely to the rather dark colouring (and lightend the picture of my artwork up a bit for the screen).
I found this subject very challenging and will paint it again at some point, it was not possible though to resist the lovely rich rosepurplishorangeyellow colour palette. I find myself quite “unused” to paint the sea … I am more used to paint trees / woodland / rivers and feel familiar with. With the sea, there is just as much possibility to get some nice drama out of it – just like the sky. So there are some reference pics I have already selected to paint just that: some dramatic sea waves clashing to the cliffs with spray… I won´t be able to “finish” all that I´d like to paint in my lifetime but I´ll try 🙂
So with today’s small sketchbook painting or rather coloured sketch I am on my way to explore how to add some wildlife into my paintings. This was based on nice source photos from pixabay, where I really enjoyed the colour palette.
Wishing you all a Happy & Healthy New Year, I close this year´s postings with a new watercolourpainting I finished, this shows a frosty misty day at a canal in Derbyshire. I am pleased with the result and next time, I´ll try out to stretch the paper before painting. Even the good quality 300g paper will cockle somewhat when using a lot of water which was the case in this one, and even with flatenning it over night I am not content of the uneven surface. The stretching method though I was told is not a 100% guarantee that the paper will stay really flat and it is a bit of a bother to water & stretch it but I´ll give that a go to see how it works out.
So these two paintings – one small format, one bigger (A3) – are finished, and even though I am not completely content with their outcome I find the scenes pleasant. Almost all the scenes that are offered to paint in this tutorial / painting group are really nice for me as a super anglophile person which is the main reason I joined, and the group members are very supportive & friendly. One can learn a lot from each other, as well as of course from the tutorials and the short instructive technique-tipps-vidous. It got a bit too much for me to consume + digest all the information, though, and I ´ll have to cut back.
Cris´s blog of art & craft 
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