Southwell Trail Artwork

Posting some of my artwork was one of the ideas I had to keep my blog going during the coronavirus restrictions. In normal times, I would be continuing with my long running Southwell Trail photography series capturing the spring blossoms and the new greenery on the trees. Instead, the camera hasn’t left the bag in weeks and I have turned to indoor activities including my artwork.

I  must admit to approaching this post with some trepidation as I am only at the start of my art journey. Much of the output to date is based on tutorials and I am very much at the copy and learn stage, with lots going in the bin!  More recently though, I have started applying some of the learning to my own subjects often using the Southwell Trail photography as a reference. These are some of the results.

Graphite Drawing

Graphite drawing was the first type of art that I completed. I find drawing more intuitive than other forms of art and learnt a lot from following Smoothie77 on YouTube and Patreon. These are two small sketches (16x11cm), the first is the Old Goods Store at the entrance to the Southwell Trail and the second is a snow scene drawn from a photograph taken when the ‘Beast from the East’ struck in 2018:

Watercolour Painting

The medium that I find the most difficult is watercolour painting. There are so many ways it can go wrong including paint consistency, wetness of the paper, working from light to dark and choosing the right palette and colour combinations. However, when it goes well watercolour is massively rewarding.

When selecting examples of my work to show here, I am hampered by potential copyright issues so I will show a repeat of the Old Goods Store composition completed in gouache. Gouache is an opaque medium that can be used in a similar fashion to watercolour although, dare I say, gouache is a little easier to work with.

Moving away from the Southwell Trail, is this tonal study of Newark Castle complete after my first plein-air painting session. I found it easier to deal with the scene without the distraction of choosing colours:

Digital Art

In addition to the traditional drawing and painting, I also dabble in digital art using a variety of different apps. In fact, there are so many options within these apps it is hard to build a coherent strategy. Sometimes I try simulating different painting methods but mostly find myself experimenting with different brushes, as the following examples will show.

The first example is a summer trail scene complete in Procreate using a ‘sable brush’. This produced a chalky, perhaps pastel-like finish:

This next example was completed in ArtRage using simulated oil paint squeezed from the tube and then worked with a palette knife. The scene is one of the fields off the Southwell Trail just after the summer harvest. The strong sunlight created a golden glow under heavy clouds which I tried to reflect in my choice of colours: