Tuesday 30 October 2012

Clovelly Nets


I love the seaside and especially fisherman’s clutter that can be found lying around. In Clovelly I was inspired by the lobster pots and the colours that shone through the netting material. I tried to work out if I was painting the netting or the holes. The rough cobbles created a regular pattern to help draw the eye into the picture.

Clovelly nets 

While I was painting this picture I read an article in the artist and illustrators magazine about gouache resist. So I thought I would give it a try. Using a piece of mount board I drew my image and then proceeded to paint gouache in the areas I wanted to keep white. When this was dry I painted over the whole image with Indian ink.

goache print

Then after a night of drying I washed the image under a cold tap to release the gouache paint. Then I added some watercolour to the image…

Gouache reveal

I have read other versions of this technique and I might come back and explore them one day…Stay Tuned.

Clovelly fishing pots image from my sketch book.

Sketchbook 6may

Monday 22 October 2012

Bressingham Truck…


Sketchbook challenge 5 May 2012

Truck-final-adjusted-web

I wasn’t sure where this sketch was going when I originally drew it…Which is no surprise as visits to Bressingham Steam Gardens were quite often consumed with booze. The trip used to signal the end of Summer for me as it was the last steam rally of the season. It was a pilgrimage to Norfolk of about 12-14 years in total.

In this sketch I was trying to portray the effect of rust on the metal and pen and ink seemed like the best method. Getting the tone right took about 2 hours.

Truck-at-Bressingham-sketch