Nocturnes

Definitely need to do more work on this, but part of me feels that I will remember what I learned in class better if I don't touch it!! Still, it glows, and that was the point of the exercise, so I learned what I needed to learn. The main lesson really is that every watercolour painting is a problem-solving experiment. And I am so lucky to be learning from the amazing Uma Kelkar!

And here are some of the thumbnails and glow practises we did before painting the full thing. Which I fully recommend we all do before tackling something as complex as the scene that was in front of our eyes. I wasn't able to keep up at that stage - I would have needed a lot more thumbnailing to figure out the shape of that building and how I wanted to paint it. It will take a while longer to process everything.

Painting cars?

Maybe painting cars will be a bit easier? Nope. I need the solid foundation of drawing before I can paint them. 

That said, I can see an improvement already. I started at the bottom right, and by the time I got to the left, I had figured out that cars are highly reflective objects. Next step will be to figure out how few lines I can get away with. Here I was basically drawing in paint over a colourful background.

Drawing cars

Ok, you can skip this, but I just wanted to set the baseline. Drawing cars does not come naturally to me, even from photos!

Tracing cars!!

Sometimes, that's what's needed to try and get an understanding of what I'm looking at. And PS, I really want to paint this. But not until I'm happy with my cars. So I traced these in Procreate.

Headings

I would like to include a few headings in my sketchbooks, but I'm struggling with big writing and spacing. I like the attempts at the bottom the best, I think. 

A boat on a lake (I think!)

I didn't take the reference picture for this, so I'm not sure if it's a lake, or the ocean.  But anyways, I changed the composition quite a bit from the reference photo.

I cropped the photo a good bit, losing the other boats which were on the left. I also removed part of the pontoon, as it was cutting the flow of the image, and then I extended to the right in Procreate so that the boat would sit on a rule-of-thirds gridline on the left. I was seriously worried about that boat, I have to say. I drew it loosely, but it was looking nothing like it should for a good while. And at one point, it looked like it was floating on top of the hill. Then I took an old hotel card or credit card and scratched that white line of the left of the boat, and a few lines to the right, and a line where the light hits the prow (is that what it's called?). Probably just the line on the left would have been enough, but once I pick up a credit card, it's hard to stop!!!

Don't ask about the triangular shape in front of the pontoon. At some stage, it was a rowboat, but it was just an actor in a supporting role, so it was left unfinished!

Did I have a plan? Oh Yes I did! Here are my Procreate doodles and my handwritten notes to prove it. Did it all go according to plan? Not quite, but I managed to make the boat look like a boat, and for that alone, I'm very proud!

(Original photo by Uma Kelkar, but you're only seeing a small piece of it)

Collins Barracks

A visit to Collins Barracks with Dublin Sketchers. I always get lost in that place! Somehow, I only ever find myself beside that plane hanging from the ceiling. There's a great spot to sketch it from, although it's so close that the foreshortening drove me mad. I had to extend the wing and the fuselage to give the impression that it could fly! Then I went to the Barracks Life room, and sketched a 1943 soldier's bed and kit. The only reason for that choice of subject is that there was a seat and the room was quiet, so I could finally take my coat of and relax into sketching. Colour blocks and text added afterwards. 

For my next sketch, I went up to the The Way We Wore room on the top floor. The lighting was very low, but, again, it was relatively quiet up there, and I sketched two dresses by Sybil Connolly, a famous designer whose dresses were worn by the likes of Julie Andrews, Elizabeth Taylor and Jackie Kennedy!

I have met so many wonderful people through Dublin Sketchers. It was so hard to say goodbye to Marina. We always had so much to talk about when we met after sketching. I will miss her. And Urban Sketchers Helsinki are so lucky she's moving to Finland! And I never even thought of taking a picture together!

My sketches were not particularly exciting, but adding the colour blocks made a huge difference.

Reborn

Sometimes the stories you create are happier than real life. That's what stories are for. Write them and drawing them makes them real. I decided to revisit my little people and fishes and worlds that I had created for a Domestika course a little over a year ago, on a small accordion book that was languishing on a shelf.

I painted first, then drew on top with a pen.

Sunset on Slea Head

Homework motivates me. I know, it's crazy. It's clearly hardwired in me, no matter how much I try to shake it off. So, when I have homework, I paint more. I don't agonise about what to paint. I don't do 10 studies. I just paint. And I'm happy on my journey. This one is a sunset view, as homework for Uma Kelkar's Emerge workshop.

 If you've been to the Dingle peninsula, you probably recognise Dunmore head from just after Slea Head, near Coumeenoole beach. It's a magical place. It's the only place I ever want to be, the Dingle peninsula between Slea Head and Ballyferriter, via Coumeenoole, Dunquin, Clogher Head and Clogher beach. I don't know why I don't go more often. I need to spend a month there on my own and paint. It won't happen this year, but I hope it does happen some day.

Sometimes, a photo of a painting seems better when it looks framed, so here it is with its border and the plastic board the paper was attached to.

Colour blend experimentation so I could figure out how to go from the yellow light to the purple sky to the left, and from the same yellow light to the green grass below. The trick was a little bit of pink added to the left as a transition.

Emerge - sunset

Continuing with the fantastic Uma Kelkar series of workshops. This time we studied sunsets. Lots of ideas and inspiration. But I am delighted with how my interpretation of the scene worked out. I managed to infuse that glow to the whole scene. And if you squint your eyes very very hard, you will see cars in the distance. But I didn't paint the cars nearby, as I knew I would ruin the whole thing. So, yes, I need to practise cars, non-stop, until I can draw them without thinking, and more importantly paint them harmoniously!

We did lots of exercises before we painted that amazing California sky. Some of my exercises ended up looking like a Ukrainian flag!

Stones

From photos from Killiney, Beara Peninsula and Lake Tahoe (photo by Uma Kelkar), done in a Saunders Waterford Hot Press sketchbook. I don't normally paint on hot press. But for stones, it seems to be the best surface. I can paint wet in wet without losing too much definition!

The first ones on the left were too diagrammatic, painted without really looking. Then I did the two stones at the bottom left, and felt that the wet in wet worked really well to show the lit side vs the dark side, but without too sharp an edge - most natural stones are curved rather than chiselled.

So I did I few more at the top right from photos from the Beara peninsula. I was happy with the result, but felt I needed something faster. Painting one stone at a time is never going to work for me in the long run. Still, I need to start learning somewhere. So will definitely attempt this on Cold Press paper. Lots of Sennelier Warm Grey and Sennelier Grey.

The one at the bottom right is from Uma Kelkar's Lake Tahoe painting. I can't quite get how she painted it in an abstract way, and yet it still looks three-dimensional. And to me the shadow colour is a green mix.

From the same painting of Lake Tahoe by Uma Kelkar, done in a small Stillman & Birn Beta sketchbook. I decided not to paint the decking that was in the original. Learning a lot from copying maestro Kelkar!

Previous explorations

And while I'm in that frame of mind:

Kasugai

Another morning view. I feel this is much more how I want to paint. It's probably not as pretty, but I'm happy with the atmosphere and the movement of it all. 

I've been wanting to paint this view since the day I took the photo from our hotel room in Kasugai, a suburb of Nagoya in Japan. I know I was looking at an industrial landscape, with chimneys spewing steam or smoke, but the light slowly emerging behind the mountains made it all magical. Maybe it was because we were going to spend more time with my good friend Shinobu, going on a weekend trip together to Takayama. Some day we'll get back to Japan, and I would like to spend some time roaming the streets of Kasugai and sketch it all. I sketched virtually on those streets during the pandemic, and I found beauty around every corner. The urban sketcher in me is longing for a new sketching adventure.

Where the clouds are hung, for the poet's eye

Mostly Monte Amiata Natural Sienna, Cerulean Blue and Quin Burnt Scarlet. With Hansa Yellow Deep (or New Gamboge, not sure which was in my palette) to give extra punch to the last one. Maybe all I want to paint is big clouds? Big brushes and soft edges make me happy.

And if you're wondering about the Title of this post, check it out here.

Coliemore Harbour

I must go for a walk around Coliemore harbour again. It's such a scenic spot, particularly in the morning, when the sun is making everything glow. So this was my sunrise view for Uma Kelkar's Emerge workshop. I worked from a photo I took last winter I think, given the position of the sun. 

This square version is my final crop. Although I liked the way the quay looked in the more rectangular version, it was taking away from the focus of this painting. I haven't actually cut the painting yet. This is just a digital edit! I might look at it in a week's time and decide I like it the way it is!

This is very different from my usual style, but there were so many straight lines and architectural details that I couldn't paint it any softer than this. It is tight. And although there are a lot of elements I am happy with, I feel it doesn't reflect who I am. But every so often, I feel the need to paint something with houses and stuff, just to prove to myself that I can do it. The fact that the walls are white makes it difficult for me to soften them. If they were a darker colour, I could probably do it. But to be honest, I don't think I want to do another version.

Colours used were mostly Monte Amiata Natural Sienna, Quin Burnt Scarlet, Cerulean Blue, Cobalt Blue, Neutral Tint, Burnt Umber. And a bit of Lavender. That's quite restrained for me.And I do like the subtle range of values. I love it when a class makes me think about what I want out of painting. This is exactly what I needed at this time.

 

My notes: my plan and the changes to my plan!

Here was an earlier version, where a bit of dark wall found itself right in the middle of my painting, so it had to be softened. 

Big squares

Always good to practise washes. I think I needed more paint for that big green square. I used my biggest brush, but I think it can take more water than there was in my palette.

It doesn't feel so cold when you're with fellow sketchers

January is always a hard month, in more ways than one. But when you're an urban sketcher, the cold is a problem. And I live in Ireland, which is not particularly cold compared to many countries. I was wearing a good coat, but my mittens were not warm enough really. So I walked around the area for a while and decided to go to a café on my own first. There was enough room in the Kilkenny Design café. I had a large table, so lots of room to spread out my art supplies. When I was done, I went back towards the back of Holles Street. I popped into the pub we were going to meet in at 4pm. There were a few sketchers there already, but I didn't see anything I wanted to sketch inside, so I headed out again and came across three sketchers at the corner of Holles Row, Stephen, Paul and Cathy. And I settled between them and all of a sudden, I didn't feel the cold any more. We chatted and sketched the beautiful street in front of us. Yes, we did complain about the cold, although Cathy, who is from New York, said that this wasn't really cold, more like April weather in New York! I drew in ink and painted in watercolour on location, and I felt great and full of energy.  

I had fun with colour circles on my page. I didn't have washi tape with me, and I didn't want to do messy squares, so I opted for circles instead. And I am practising writing neat headings. Not something that comes naturally to me!