ARNSIDE: OYSTERCATCHERS FLYPAST

This is a recovery of one of my ‘Possibles’ It is a watercolour I did several  years ago after a visit to Arnside on Morecambe Bay.  I tried to include a flight of Oystercatchers lifting off the sands, they were some distance off and they were badly placed and too small to make an effective compositional motif.

The landscape area worked well so looking at the painting afresh with a more experienced eye I thought it worth trying to repaint the birds. I restretched the painting and sponged off the oystercatchers.  It was impossible to remove all traces but by making the new group of birds larger I was able to cover up the old ones by making use of Chinese White as a body colour.

The paper I used was Fabriano Artistico Rough. I had a friend who swore by this paper and he produced some lovely watercolour landscapes on it.  I have to admit I never got on too well with it and generally took better to a NOT surface.

NEVER DESTROY ANYTHING

I read somewhere that Edward Seago instructed his executors to destroy 30% of the work left in his studio after he died. I’m not anticipating dying but as I was sorting through my stock of old paintings I remembered Seago’s instruction and started to consign things to the rubbish bin.

That was a mistake because my wife said; “Have you still got that painting of Glen Walford’s production of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ ?”   Glen Walford directed several plays for the Ludlow Festival  she’d just received an email from Glen and she thought it would be nice to let Glen have it as a reminder  – if she would like to see it.  Disaster! I’d torn it in half and consigned the pieces to the waste bag. 

I used to go to Ludlow Castle and make sketches during rehearsals so I was able to turn some drawings in an old sketchbook. Then, fortunately I was able to retrieve part of the painting which had two of the main characters. Titania (Cathy Tyson) and Bottom (Matt Devitt). So my wife was able to scan them and add the copies to an email when she replied.

So no more destruction.  I sorted the work into two sets ‘Possibles’ and ‘No hopers’. I’ll maybe reclaim the Possibles and leave my family to decide what to do with the others.

STONECHAT REDISCOVERED

This painting of a Stonechat was one of the first serious bird paintings I did over 10 years ago. Quite why I never continued exploring the genre then I can’t fully understand now.  Watercolour landscape was the chief preoccupation of most of my friends. The watercolour turned up again when I was sorting through some old work.

My wife and I suddenly spotted a pair of Stonechats on a drystone wall when walking over the low hills on the south side of the Mawddach estuary in Wales. We  and watched them for 15 minutes or so as they flitted along the wall occasionally darting from one side to the other. 

In my hillwalking days my sketching kit consisted of a pad of A3 cartridge paper and some sticks of charcoal. Sufficient to capture jizz – that is pose and movement – but I was able to supplement the sketches with detail from colour slides later.  I did watercolours of a male and a female intending to show them together at one of our LAS exhibitions. Surprisingly the female sold leaving this colourful lively chap without a mate.

Yes it's on Fabriano5 which I mentioned on Wednesday's post.

A LUCKY FIND

Tidiness was never my strong point so I've been putting my studio store cupboard in order. One aspect of tidiness I am meticulous about though is storing  paper. Watercolour paper is so expensive that any sheet with an Arches or Waterford watermark is placed carefully flat on a shelf to avoid at all costs any damage to the surface.

I've always used papers with a Not Pressed surface for the quick free splosh style that once had me in thrall for landscape work. Having now taken a serious interest in painting birds I've found that a more precise approach  required. It needs a paper with a less pronounced grain. I was anticipating having to buy some Hot Pressed sheets which which would be more suitable. Then I made a lucky find when checking some sheets of Arches. There were some papers in the packet which were a different size - curious!

They were sheets of Fabriano 5 a paper that I haven't used for over 10 years. It has a smoother surface than NOT papers and I'd been convinced that watercolour landscape needed NOT surfaced papers. The widely used Bockingford  paper only has a NOT type surface developed to suit Edward Wesson.

Fabriano5 is a 50% cotton paper and a web search revealed that Ken Bromley Art Supplies stock it. I think it should be fine for my purposes so I'll be giving it a go.

TRIVIAL PURSUITS

I rarely post to Artists Forums these days though I occasionally drop by some of the ones I once visited regularly.  Mostly they’re just chat with very little substance.  Last week I came across a post from a lady asking if it was OK to use watercolour in pans.  The paint from tubes was too runny - she preferred using pans but the paint dried and it was hard on brushes when you had to rewet the surface.

This generated a string of replies about how to solve this difficult problem!  Ever since my student days I was always told to use tubes and I would have thought that tutors running recreational classes would be giving the same advice.  So why does anybody need to discuss such a trivial matter?

Keith Noble RSMA – our current Ludlow Art Society President – came to one of the members’ plein air sketching days last year. He took out a pristine clean watercolour box looked at his subject and squeezed out the colours he needed. I was most impressed.  It was a Craig Young Watercolour box – he assured me it was not brand new –that  was the way he worked.  His watercolours sell for as much as it would have cost him to buy it.  Lucky man – I’d have to consider taking out a mortgage to purchase one.

I have a Holbein Box with a thumb hole in one half enabling it to be used as a palette.  It has a row of shallow wells to squeeze out colours . I’m not such a fastidious craftsman as Keith though – mine is rarely completely pristine clean.

NESTING KITTIWAKES

This painting started on a visit to the Farne Islands off the Northumbrian coast. It’s a well managed nature reserve and the cliffs are a haven for several species of sea birds. The boatman who ferried us over steered slowly under the cliffs to give good views of the birds.

This painting in – acrylic on canvas – was composed from a preliminary mixed media study which is on the Wildlife Page on my website. The cliff skyline was populated by gulls, Cormorants, and Puffins. Such a choice but I’ve just included a single Puffin who looks as if he’s curious about what’s going on.

A DIGITAL EXPLORATION

I think the most difficult problem with painting a group of birds is to place them in a convincing composition. During the cold weather of last winter flocks of Fieldfares and Redwings were attracted to the holly berries and over ripe crab apples in the garden. I attempted to paint a watercolour of four Redwings in the branches of our crab apple.  It wasn’t working so I enlisted the help of Painter XI.

I started the painting by making an outline watercolour drawing directly with a No. 6 Sable. Next a scan of two of the birds  was opened in Painter.  The outlines of the birds, tree branches, and the watercolour wash used for the sky are visible.  The digital additions were done on two layers The first was used to add a transparent background fill and the second layer was used to add the berries.

It would be possible to develop detail and modify colours on subsequent layers with the aim of producing a digital print. With the file saved that’s an option that could be tried later. After this initial exploration I’m more attracted to taking the watercolour to a finished state with the use of  body colour.

STAR GAZING WITH A CAMERA

Prof. Brian Cox' TV programmes have stimulated a lot of interest in Stargazing. A Facebook friend is showing a photograph of the Plaeides taken with a Canon 1000D and a 200mm telephoto lense. The technique seems to be to take a set of 1.5min exposures and stack them presumably using Photoshop. He used 33 digital photographs to get a bright image. Registering them and dropping them onto a single base layer must be quite tricky. A fascinating and ingenious procedure for a digital camers enthusiast though.