Dipping into landscapes…again.

pauldaviescartoons

Aug 5

I've had all sorts of tries to get all sorts of landscapes on paper and they go back a few years. I'm aiming for a new approach now. They will probably the same images as I've used in the past as I attempt to do the scenes some sort of justice. I work from my own photographs ( occasionally borrowing from my friend and fellow walker: Robin, but I don't want to encourage him as he is prone to speaking 'art bollox' about his creations in the middle of a walk )

Where to start? My grandsons from the States visited recently, and when I persuaded them that some drawing might be in order they took to it enthusiastically. The peace and quiet as they organised themselves in front of the paper was brilliant to see, and not hear. How did they draw? Well it took them a nano second to decide and in they went, starting wherever they liked. No inhibitions and no faffing about with rough versions.

I like to think that for these new landscapes I might do the same thing. The only factor delaying the boys was choice of colour, and again that took a nano second to know what they wanted and a few seconds to find the colour required.

What they produced was fresh and alive,I can only hope that my results will be similar in feel.

For the most part the images that I'll be drawing are in the Gloucestershire area, some from recent photographs, others from quite a while ago that I think have met the test of time. To get started is not quite what the boys do. I like to have the images lying around or on my notice board. As a devout sheddist there are likely to be a few of those: sheds

The drawings done so far from these photos have been done in Indian ink and then coloured with chalk pastels. They are essentially line drawings. For this new edition I'm going to try and do the whole lot in pastels, and perhaps pencil here and there. I'm looking to give then a little more atmosphere. In addition, I'm going to work big.

After producing the line drawings last year and earlier this, I tried an experiment to get colour on them. I had large prints done, and then coloured the prints. So in effect I'd done most of the drawing and only needed to apply the colour. Some worked, I think, others did not. In an effort to get more space on some of the images I resorted to glueing bits together. Fun, messy, and in the end it really did not work as you can always see the join!

I suppose that I could disguise and mend it in photoshop but did not want to do that, the idea is to produce a pure image without any digital faffing.

I've tried digital faffing in the past and to be honest, it seems to suck the life out of an image to me.

So the first part of my new plan is to go through the images that I want to do again. The will help me get into the 'zone', so to speak. The 'zone' being the will do go ahead and have a go at these new images. Being free to choose these days exactly what I draw and when it's important to get into the right frame of mind. No deadlines can mean putting off and then putting off again any sort of start time, and writing this is a start as I'm at least on here, committing to making a start.

*One of my first dips into landscape from some years ago*

This was originally a black and white drawing and the colour was added digitally, at the time I thought it was ok but now have second thoughts. It's on the east coast of Scotland.

The one below is a more recent line drawing, made into a print and then the colour added in chalk pastel. Its one of the more successful of my recent ideas, but I'm hoping to build on this and re-do the image in a large drawing all in pastel. We'll see.

See the join? Bottom half is a print with colour added to the print and the sky is on a different type of paper and added. My plan is to improve on this by doing the same image but in one level with none of the glueing and faffing. It remains to be seen if it will work.

Incidentally this is on the edge of Tideswell in Derbyshire, lovely spot, great atmospheric light.

Close up it shows the problem. Photoshop might fix it but it would be a different beast then.

This one is the original ink drawing simply with colour added. No joining and faffing but the heavy black lines are just a little too much, so may give this shed another go, without the ink.
Lots to do.