Birch trees in watercolour and coloured pencil: demo for class



Watercolour and coloured pencil, approx 7.5 x 9.5 ins

This one was done yesterday as a class demo.   Last week we'd looked at how various artists handled trees and undergrowth.   This week we looked at the sketchbooks of John Blockley, David Hockney, Kurt Jackson and David Prentice, also the line and wash work that Sue Lewington does.

Then they wanted a demo of birches to see how I worked and discuss methods, order, techniques etc.

It was done straight into watercolour, no preliminary drawing with pencil, with a mix of White Nights and W&N artists pans, on heavy watercolour paper, type unknown as it was donated by one of the class.  There are slight touches of watercolour pencils in there too.

There has been a lot of this sort of light on my journey to and from work lately - brooding skies ahead but sunlight where I am, making the landscape glow.  This particular section is on a highish plateau - the countryside isn't actually this flat roundabout but appears to be in this view.

The trees were sketched in with paint first so that the white of the paper could be retained as necessary.  Then far trees, field, sky and foreground foliage were added in layers and glazes. 

I used these brushes plus a rigger for the calligraphic marks of the foliage and for parts of the trees.

When it was dry I added touches of Derwent Studio pencil to increase the glow or add extra shadow in a couple of places.





Comments

Vivian said…
I enjoyed looking through your blog. You have a wonderful free touch of paint to paper! Although I work in textiles, my work is related to the watercolour techniques I learned some years ago. I think like a painter and translate it into fabric.
vivien said…
thank you :)

I had a look at the quilts on your blogs - there are some beauties

I'm always thinking of playing with textiles and never actually get round to doing it - eventually maybe ....

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