Concentrating the light in your paintings

    Whatever medium you paint with, light is the all-important key. You can bathe your composition entirely in strong sunlight if you wish, but by restricting the brightest parts to one or two localised areas you will achieve more impact. In this picture I have cut out a large part of the painting just to illustrate the advantages of the sort of effect you can achieve by concentrating the light into a small part of the composition. The turbulent sea gave sketching on the boat a refreshing spontaneity, although it was not long before it was not just the sea that was starting to turn a bit green......

   Although I finished my book on the Scandinavian Arctic a while ago, I've been trying to catch up on so many things, so there's been little time for blogging, especially with such a tremendous autumn that has tempted me out time after time. David Bellamy's Arctic Light will be published in May 2017 by Search Press.

    With winter with us once more try to get out to sketch those lovely winter trees whenever you can. Choose your days, wrap up well and if you have all your sketching gear ready to hand you can work quickly before you get too cold. I usually take a thermal travel mug with me as the drink will stay warm for ages, and is a great boost to morale when the sun disappears behind a cloud. My book Winter Landscapes in Watercolour is packed with tips on painting winter scenes, working outdoors in cool weather, and making the most of those warm colours, low lighting and evocative winter trees. You can find a copy on my website together with the film of the same name, which has some stunning winter scenery and was produced by APV Films.

    On Wednesday 30th the Christmas exhibition begins at Lincoln Joyce Fine Art and the above painting (in full!) will be on display with several others. You will find the gallery at 40 Church Road, Great Bookham, Surrey KT23 3PW  Tel. 01372 458481

Sketching a bridge through trees

    I've just returned from a sketching trip to the English Lake District, having experienced a variety of weather conditions, making for some interesting and varied sketching outdoors. The best day was when I climbed to the summits of the Coniston peaks on a sunny day. I aimed initially for Swirl How, from which there are marvellous views all round, and at that level extensive snow made them even more impressive. I was perfectly happy sitting in the snow painting a watercolour sketch and sipping a coffee with hardly a breath of wind. When I moved further south along the ridge and looked back the southern aspects of the mountains were completely devoid of snow. Had I done the trip the other way round I'd have been really disappointed with the views northwards.

    The sketch I'm showing, though, is one done in light rain, using a watersoluble pencil on a cartridge pad. As you can see it has quite a few notes and a slightly different view of the bridge itself from higher up, at the top of the page. From my position below the falls the bridge was mainly obscured by branches - in summer it would have been impossible to see, but by moving around a little I was able to piece together the main bridge structure, reducing the number of branches.

    I then moved higher up, almost on a level with the bridge, and drew in the details as seen at the top of the page. This explained the structure of its rather unusual, but attractive shape, and was helpful even though the perspective was naturally quite different from the first drawing. I backed it up with photographs, but this is a case which clearly shows the advantage of a drawing, both for the main overall subject, and those little bits of detail that can lend an authentic feeling to your work.

    You can find the lovely old bridge on the track up to the Coniston Coppermines Valley, where it levels out, but take care as there are steep and deep drops into Church Beck. I'm glad to say that I've now handed my book on painting winter landscapes over to my publisher, to be published in the autumn, but this one sketch gives you a good idea of the advantages of getting out there before all that dreaded greenery arrives!