We were driving through the volcano park in the south west of the island. This is a stunning place, where every turn in the road reveals yet more shapes, colours and textures.
I was desperate to get out and paint, so John pulled up and I sat beside the car on my little stool, with my A3 sketchbook on my lap:
I spent most of my time on the one above. The sun was going down fast, so I was about to call it a day when I changed my mind, did an about-face, and painted another, really quick, instinctive sketch of the view behind me:
I was really pleased with the gestural, abstracted way the lava in the foreground worked. Hope you agree!
6 comments:
Loving your sketches. Would love to learn more about the circular palette and the colours you are using. Thanks.
Thank you.
I don't have any special colours - fairly standard palette, with Cerulean Blue and Prussian Blue added, and mostly Windsor & Newton. The palette itself is a Frank Herring one. I love it. You can find them online :-)
Hi Lynne, My response is a big "Yes!," to your question about the abstraction of lava in foreground. Whenever I visit your blog I eagerly look for the nature sketches. To my eyes you are such a master of leaving white space -including here in this lava abstraction. I realize that comes with experience... but, would you care to share any thoughts on how you developed that particular skill?
Best regards,
Karen
Thank you so much.
I have got better and better at instinctive painting over the last 3 or so years, but I suppose I have been interested in drawing that way for much longer. I find that it happens quite naturally when I am painting quickly, but is harder to achieve when I am taking my time and thinking too much.
It's more about practise than anything else though. I noticed the difference in my technique after my year as artist in residence at the Morgan Centre, because I was doing rapid observational painting for a couple of days each week, all day solid. Practise gradually loosens you up, if you let it.
One other thing that helps is a good brush. I began my sketch-paintings using a waterbrush, but you can't get such exciting marks. Now I use a dagger made by Rosemary & Co, which is a perfect natural / synthetic mix to give me lovely springy, flicky marks.
Hi Lynne,
Thanks s much for your reply to my inquiry about leaving white space!
"Practise gradually loosens you up, if you let it."
--That's a helpful observation! Now that I reflect on it, I can see that in my quest to leave white areas I have become tighter, less spontaneous. Probably a result of being too deliberate, too analytical in the quest for that effect -- which clearly is counter productive, because the white areas that I admire in others' work is always left by loosely applying the paint! Thanks again.
And yes, I do know what you mean about the limitations of a waterbrush.
Karen
So glad that helped Karen. Think about the marks more than the areas of colour and the white does kind of take care of itself ;-)
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