Painting the right sort of bad weather

    We've just finished the studio filming with APV Films for my forthcoming DVD on painting Winter Landscapes, due out in September with my book of the same title. Most of the filming went smoothly, although the last part was heavily punctuated by wild gusts of wind and heavy rain lashing the studio, accompanied by a bombardment of artillery fire from the Sennybridge range. Thankfully they were not firing at us! It rather reminds me of the time I was sketching and camping on a Northumberland bombing range, having missed the signs somehow..........

    At the moment I'm working on Wild Highlands, an exhibition in conjunction with the John Muir Trust, which will run from 16th April to 18th June in Pitlochry, Scotland. One of the aims of the exhibition is to highlight the ongoing devastation of the Scottish Highlands by industrialisation by massed wind turbines and their supporting power lines, which are now encroaching on some of the stunning mountain landscapes that epitomise the Highlands. Many of these will be on peat blankets and former forestry areas, which are the closest equivalent we have in the UK to rain-forests.

    This painting of Beinn Eige will be in the exhibition, and you can see that the mountain has several summits. Painting all these in good weather can invoke a feeling of having too many summits, so this is where it's often a good idea to bring in some bad weather to hide one or two. It also adds a sense of mystery, which viewers love. I usually achieve this effect of mountains hidden in clouds by running the mountain washes up into a wet area in the sky - in this instance where you can see the pink effect. An alternative technique is to soften off the mountain peak with a wet sponge.

    As you can see here, I've actually made my 'bad weather' rather more user-friendly by painting with alizarin crimson and French ultramarine mixed with cadmium red, so make sure you utilise the right brand of 'bad weather!'

Painting snow scenes

    This seems like the wettest January I've ever experienced, but even so there have been 3 or 4 absolutely fabulous days of glorious sunshine, blue skies and hardly a breath of wind, which shows that if we wait for them, and have all our art gear ready to go, we can take advantage of some beautiful spring-like days even in the wettest of Januarys. I've had some marvellous moments sketching in the hills lately, but all too brief.

    Anyway, in anticipation of some snow (much to the neighbours' concern we've been invoking the little-known snow-making ritual in the garden, but so far only attracted further deluge), I shall just cover a few basic points to help you with your snow scenes. This painting of a Herefordshire scene in late winter I did many years ago. I began by making the sky dark enough to highlight the snow-covered roofs, which were left as white paper. Even so, the cloudless sky suggests a fine day. To avoid the scene appearing too cold all over, I emphasised the red-brick walls of the buildings, and this also draws the eye to them as the centre of interest.

    Clods of earth from the ploughed ruts peek up through the snow, and I have re-arranged them slightly to aim towards the buildings. The field under the strong sunshine reflected dazzling white all over, but I wanted to subdue some of this so that the emphasis would be thrown more towards the centre of the composition, so I washed clean water right across the field and then a wash of cobalt blue with a touch of cadmium red over the immediate foreground and to either side. This is a technique you can use quite easily to highlight any part of a painting you wish.

    Enjoy the snow when it comes! I must get out into the garden again.............

Adding a little mystery to your Watercolours

    I'm only just dragging myself out of that Christmas sloth, not encouraged by day after day of pouring rain. Where is all that lovely snow? Anyway, thanks to all of you who send us Christmas greetings. It was much appreciated by Jenny and myself.

    My art year has started with an article in Leisure Painter Magazine and 2014 rings up another milestone: I've been writing articles for Leisure Painter for the last 30 years, and it has been a marvellous relationship with some great folk. So the painting I am featuring here is part of that article, although I shall now be discussing a different aspect.

   The picture shows a small corner of a watercolour of Tenby Harbour at dusk. This is a magical time to capture images, as the atmosphere tends to be more accentuated, and you are less likely to overdo the detail as so much of it is lost in the atmosphere! Although in this instance I could actually see  more detail in the buildings, I deliberately avoided putting in too much, and in fact simply laid a weak wash over the lower parts so that the suggestions of masts and boats would stand out more. At such times shapes run into each other, often creating a sense of mystery, so going out in search of subjects when you can hardly see them might at first sound rather perverse, but it does teach you a very powerful lesson in creating mystery and atmosphere.

    So I shall end by wishing you all many magical and mysterious moments of happy painting in 2014

Painting figures in action

    Drawing and painting figures is always fascinating, whether to include in a landscape painting, as subjects in themselves, or in a fantasy context as you will see below. Life drawing is easily the best way of learning to draw the figure, though this may hardly be necessary if you are simply wishing to add a few tiny figures into a wide open landscape. I love drawing figures, especially action ones, really doing something interesting, and much of the time these tend to be humorous.

 This is a small part of one of the illustrations from my children's book Terror of the Trolls, where several trolls are gorging themselves - one is eating a leg of some sort, the one on the left is warming his feet in the soup, and the third is flat out after a heavy drinking session. Getting people to pose for these activities was not a real problem, though some of the more gymnastic poses in other parts of the book did rather leave me scratching my head! Note here how you cannot see the whole body of any one troll, and this makes it look more natural, especially in non-fantasy situations. Try to have your figures relating to each other, and not there just to 'fill the gap'. Back-ground figures can remain as silhouettes, thus throwing the emphasis more onto the main figures.

    One especially effective technique that occurs repeatedly in this scene is that of creating soft edges. This not only lends atmosphere, but suggests depth and distance as one sharp-edged feature will come forward, in front of the softer-edged one. Terror of the Trolls is the second book of the Llandoddie tales and is available from our website

    Last night Jenny and I enjoyed the Erwood Station Craft Centre Christmas Party, where the lovely Lorraine King entertained us with her wonderful repertoire of songs. It was a wild night (outside!), and in addition to the bridge being closed, three other roads were cut off by fallen trees, so it was a wonder that so many folk attended, having hiked over hill and vale or probably coracled across the Wye. Nothing stops the Erwood Station Stompers! It closes for Christmas and re-opens on 14th February.

    Jenny and I thank all of you who have sent in so many kind messages over the last year, and wish you and your families a very Happy Christmas wherever you live, and may your painting give you many moments of great pleasure and success in 2014

Creating small flecks of white in your watercolours

    I've been away in south-east England last week, and for two of the days working on the stage-by-stage paintings for my next book, Winter Landscapes in Watercolour at the Search Press studio. One of those awkward little problems facing the watercolourist is when you need to include small spots or lines of white in a scene, a particular necessity with snow subjects.

    You can try masking fluid, but this often induces larger blobs than you want and can sometimes look wrong when it is rubbed off. Scratching with a scalpel is another method, and this can be very effective, though not everyone is confident with using one. In this scene showing part of a painting I have painted on white gouache where I wanted patches of snow on the upper side of branches close to the trunk, where they tend to remain longer as there is less motion in that part of the branch. I've also dabbed some on the window sill of the barn. The roofs were left white, and you can see that because the sun is so low the tops of the roofs are slightly darker in shadow than the strips at the end where the snow is quite thick. I often use white gouache for tiny areas like the branches and sills.

    The book will be published by Search Press in September, and will be accompanied by a DVD from APV Films. As well as winter landscapes it will cover late autumn to early spring, covering a wide variety of scenery and techniques. It is the third in the series, following Mountains & Moorlands in Watercolour and Skies, Light & Atmosphere in Watercolour, both of which are available on my website

Painting woodland scenes in watercolour

    My last blog featured autumn trees, and as it's such a good time to be working on trees I'll follow it up with summer trees which can be adapted for autumn trees if necessary. Woodlands are great places at this time of year when the autumn mists create fascinating, soft backgrounds. Even in sharp visibility I tend to make woodland backgrounds less harsh as it adds a sense of mystery and simplifies the composition.

    This is part of a painting of a beechwood and you will see that I've given a different treatment to each of the three main tree-trunks. The right-hand tree was painted in while the background was still damp, and this included the foliage as well as the trunk. The soft, cool colour suggests distance. When the paper was dry I painted in the middle tree-trunk onto dry paper. The sharper edges tend to bring it closer, yet there is still no detail on the trunk. Finally the closest tree has been made larger and with strong detail and dark tones, thus really bringing it forward. I've also made use of the dead leaves of the previous winter lying on the ground, to enhance the warm foreground and hence push the rest of the scene into the distance.

    The complete painting can be seen at Erwood Station Craft Centre, with several others. I shall be demonstrating there on Saturday 23rd November from 2pm to 4pm, on how to rescue watercolours that have not quite worked, and how to improve parts of a painting with which you may not be happy with. The cost of the demo is £7 which will be donated to the Welsh Air Ambulance. Erwood Station lies beside the beautiful River Wye, about 8 miles south of Builth Wells, and is a lovely place to explore, stop for tea and refreshments and walk some of the footpaths. At the moment Erwood bridge is closed, so you either need to approach the centre from the north via the B4567, or if coming from the south cross the Wye at Boughrood bridge and drive northwards with the Wye on your left. Ring 01982 560674 for information.

Capturing autumn colours in watercolour

    Autumn colours have been late arriving this season. I've just returned from running a painting course in Snowdonia, hoping for a blaze of colour, but sadly only a few trees co-operated. Despite the strong winds a lot of leaves remain on the trees and it is still worth getting out and seeking colourful subjects out there.

    This is a small demonstration piece I did for the group. While I use a number of warm colours for autumn trees, here I've applied gamboge, a lovely warm yellow, with cadmium orange. To make your autumn colours really sing you need to juxtapose them against a mauve or blue-grey, as these are complementary colours. You will see this phenomenon at its best where autumn trees stand against distant hills or mountains, or against a dark sky as in the painting.

    There are some good examples of this in my Mountains & Moorlands in Watercolour book, and the DVD of the same name. There is a special offer on this package, which is only available in our website shop.

    At the moment Jenny is working on a fascinating staged pastel painting of a Moroccan scene - I pop into her studio every now and again to have a peep, and you can find on her blog

    Don't forget, my exhibition in Lincoln Joyce Fine Art continues until Saturday 9th November, where you will find some watercolours from some of my books, as well as new paintings. They can be found at 40 Church Road, Great Bookham, Surrey,  Telephone 01372 458481