rkstudio

I’ve Been Out Sketching Today

I happened to be in Worcester with an hour to spare, it was a warm sunny afternoon so I found a quiet spot in the cathedral close and had an absorbing 45 minutes drawing a bit of medieval ruin near the west doorway. Drawing en plein air is an activity I’ve neglected of late. Nowadays I work mostly from old sketchbooks or I rework paintings by transforming them into a different medium – so a pastel subject is revived and taken in a different direction through the medium of watercolour.

That’s a convenient way of working and when looking through old work there are always discoveries to be made. I could have happily kept working in this way reworking things in Pastel, Acrylic or watercolour except events have a way of taking over. The Ince exhibition nudged me towards taking pure watercolour seriously again and his sketchbooks displayed a degree of finish which I’d never attempted.

Then I bought ‘Light and Mood in Watercolour’ - David Curtis most recent book which prompted me to take another hard look at his work. His early training as a draughtsman shows in all his watercolours – very noticeably so in his larger ones. This was reason enough to go back to basics and work on my own draughtsmanship.