Line and Wash (again)

It's been a while, so I don't mind reminding you about something. I don't get colour. It's one of the things which really frustrates me. It's not like monochrome. I get monochrome, which may well be why I like sketching so much. I'm not trying to brag, but when I make an ink, or pencil drawing, or a monochrome painting even, it usually turns out pretty much how I intended it to. As I said, I'm no genius, no expert, no professional, but I largely know how to get close to what I want in a sketch. Not so painting.

I haven't done an acrylic painting for a year, but I'd say that I have improved over the years. Compare this, my first ever acrylic painting made in 2015:-

with this, one of three Acrylic paintings made in 2021:-

I'm still very much a work in progress with acrylic, but I think it's not unreasonable to say I'm getting better. Sadly the Afan Nedd Artist's group has folded , and that's where I made the majority of my acrylics. 

With watercolour it is a different story. I don't seem to get any better. And the fact is I would really, really love to be able to produce line and wash - ink and watercolour - sketches to be proud of. I recently bought a book, "Line and Wash" Painting by Liz Chaderton. You can find it on Amazon if you click the link

Line and Wash Painting by Liz Chaderton

Using the good advice in the book, I'm trying to overhaul what passes for my technique, and start all over again.

My results have been mixed. First there was this picture of Covent Garden Tube station

It's okay. . . but, well it just doesn't look the way I wanted it to look. I had another go with Southgate Tube station this time:-

Now, I'm sure you can see part of the problem I had with this one. I used a fineliner with soluble ink. It's not a disaster, but not to be recommended. Whereas I thought the Covent Garden sketch was too busy, and could have been more simplified, I felt this one is better on that score, but the colours, with the exception of the sky, are washed out. To some extent you can blame my scanner, which hates blues, hence the grey shadow beneath the apron which is more purpley-blue on the original. I applied a lot of ink again once it was dry, and  I think this is a bit overdone. 

So this morning I made this picture of a narrow steep street in Malta. I began with a far more minimalist ink sketch than I'd normally start with:-

That was one lesson that I wanted to put into practice. Another was not to worry too much about trying to paint in details, but to paint in moods. I started with light areas, and remembered to allow them to dry before adding darker areas. Here's the finished picture

Valletta

It's better. It's not as good as I want to paint, but I think it might just be a step in the right direction. I think the combination of colours on the steps where it's in shadow work nicely. I think on a similar painting in future I could go even stronger on the contrast between lights and darks. To be fair, the scanner didn't pick out the blue of the sky quite as blue as it is. 

The next thing will be to be able to apply these tips on a scene where it's not all or mostly warm colours like this.

Sorry, where was I?

 Well, catching up on the last few months, I've been busy. Art wise I kept up the Sketching Everyday challenges through October and November, but through December I had less and less time, what with resurrecting my quiz career on a strictly part time basis, and running the Etsy store. I wouldn't say it was exactly a roaring trade, but in the lead up to Christmas the prints were certainly shifting.

Just after Christmas I finished my challenge to sketch all of the London Underground, London Overground and Docklands Light Railway stations, which I've been doing off and on for the last couple of years. Finishing meant that I had to face an uncomfortable fact. The Overground sketches and the DLR sketches were just much, much better than the Underground ones. Don't take my word for it, compare them for yourself:-

This is a sketch of a station on the London Overground

This is Canary Wharf station on the DLR

Original sketch of Ruislip Manor

I'm sure that you can see what I mean. The Ruislip Manor sketch is not a bad sketch as such, but it's not as good as what came after with the Overground and the DLR. A close look shows why. The later sketches are as complete as I can make them, the Ruislip Manor one isn't. The building lacks detail and shading, and there's little in the foreground or background to give the building context. Now, I could have said - so what? - and left the underground sketches as they were. No I couldn't. So I made up my mind to make another 30 Underground sketches, and replace selected stations with them to improve the quality of the whole. So for Ruislip Manor, I made this one: - 

It's of comparable quality to the Overground and DLR sketches. While I was working on the new sketches, it occurred to me that in a lot of cases, I could actually improve the originals, and get them towards the standard I wanted. At first I tried to do this directly onto the digital images uses the basic Paint programme on my lap top. I did about 20 this way, like this one: -

That's not bad for the detailing of the brickwork and roof tiling. However it is too fiddly when it comes to adding foreground and background details. So then I decided to root out the original sketches, and draw the improvements directly onto them. For the majority the results were pretty good. Compare this original sketch: - 

with the improved version here - 

When you look at the two - which are the same sketch - it's remarkable the difference detailing, and putting the building in context with foreground and background, can make. I improved the majority of sketches this way. 

I had a problem with some of the sketches when I couldn't find the originals. In these cases I had to print off the digital versions, and then improve them by hand. Here's an example:-

It was a decent sketch to begin with, but I think it's better for the work I did on the printed version. Of course, there were sketches that I couldn't improve. For example, this sketch of King's Cross just wasn't good enough. I didn't even have the original, and I just didn't feel I could get it up to standard.

So I cut my losses, and made this brand new sketch

Likewise there were a few others where I'd done silly things like filling in windows and doorways completely black. The largest number I had to do came from either end of the Central Line, where I'd used terrible paper, which scans grey, for example:-

It didn't matter how much I improved the building and how much context I gave it, that horrible grey would still be there. So I made new sketches of each of them like this: -

In the end I made over 40 new sketches. For the sake of variety, I did make a couple of them line and wash pictures. For example, this is Covent Garden: - 

Snot too bad, neither. It doesn't fit with the sketches though. Or at least, it doesn't till you scan it greyscale:-

I love the greyscale version, I have to say.

So there we are, the Underground, Overground and DLR all complete.

Which begs the question, what do I do with them now, and what next?