Painting and Sketching in Iceland

    We still have 3 rooms available on my painting holiday to Iceland from 20th to 28th June if any of you are interested in the amazing natural scenery of this fascinating country. There's no camping involved, although we shall be doing some walking to the subjects which will include spectacular waterfalls, mountains, glaciers, rivers, lakes, lava formations and much more, so it will be a fairly easy way to reach and paint these scenes, many of them world-class wonders.

The holiday has been organised by Spencer Scott Travel in conjunction with Leisure Painter magazine, so for details either click the link for Spencer Scott above, or telephone them on (+44) 01825 714310. Their email address is info@spencerscott.co.uk  if you to write. I shall be demonstrating sketching and watercolour painting techniques, with particular emphasis on creating that marvellous sense of space and distance so common in Iceland, together with methods for injecting atmosphere and light into the subject. The picture on the left of a scene in North America illustrates these aspects of landscape painting. Even though it is only part of a composition it evokes a sense of vast space by the use of cool blue-greys and the tonal range which shows strong dark values in the foreground and only vague, faint ones in the far distance. By limiting the colour range this unifies the scene and creates a feeling of moodiness.

You will see that some features have been left white - the white of the paper, with other parts of the peaks overlaid with shadow washes. This effectively throws the emphasis on to the light areas. In Iceland we shall have a tremendous range of colours, including probably a number of truly dramatic black lava-scapes.....an interesting challenge for the watercolourist.