DEMONSTRATION Bluebell Path
STAGE ONE
Using a full tonal range from the white of the paper to almost black from the 3B pencil I was able to indicate distance with soft grey tones, middle distance with darker greys and foreground with crisp dark marks that would create depth. Using the same pencil I transferred the drawing onto a piece of HP watercolour paper of the same proportions
STAGE TWO
Having wet the paper all over I laid the yellow in places where I knew I was going to need it – the sunnier patches of grass and the foliage of the trees, then ultramarine where the distant trees and the large patches of bluebells would be, and finally pthalocyanine green for the foreground grass. These were laid wetin-wet on the wet paper, and from time to time I tilted the board to encourage the liquid acrylics to flow into certain places – don’t do this anywhere that can’t take a bit of mess! I call this phase ‘painting with gravity’, and it produces many of the tree shapes that I will use in the distance. Then I left it to dry completely
STAGE THREE
Using medium cobalt blue, ultramarine blue and indanthrene blue pencils, all sharpened to a fine point with a metal sharpener, I carefully defined the distant trees by colouring the areas around them; I did it this way because the trees will look as though they ‘belong’ to the picture more, and I didn’t want to lay all that lovely liquid acrylic colour and immediately cover it up with pencil. They will all have the liquid acrylic colours running through them and by varying the tone around them I can bring them forward or send them into the background. I also started to define the edges of the leaves in the trees further forward. Getting ahead of myself, I couldn’t resist trying a bit of violet grey on the foreground trees, indicating branch shadows to define the trees as round
▶ STAGE FOUR
This is the bit I’d been waiting for! Using oxide of chromium green I started to shape the branches with leaves on, again working largely in the negative space, preserving much of the original liquid acrylic colour. I then coloured some of the leaves in the middle distance that are against the sky. After that I threaded the branches and tree trunks through the leaves using lost-and-found techniques. I used violet grey for the paler tones; sepia 50%, sepia and carmine lake for the darker tones, varying the pressure on the pencil tip as required. As variety is the spice of life, I ran some burnt ochre over the darker tones on some of the foreground trees to warm them up
▲ FINISHED PAINTING
Bluebell Path, coloured pencil over liquid acrylics, 14319in (25.5348cm).
Using the same four colours I used for the tree trunks, I defined the path that weaves through the wood. Running these colours over the original green liquid acrylic resulted in a slightly different effect to the trees but provides a general harmony to the piece. The edges of the path were defined by a broken line with a sepia pencil, and again burnt ochre was used to warm up sunnier areas. Dark English green and grass green were used for the shadows in the grassy areas – some have a straight edge and some a ragged edge to describe lighter clumps of grass in front of them. Applying more pressure on the ultramarine pencil resulted in some shadows in the bluebell areas. In the foreground I indulged myself and put in more defined bluebells with the same colour.
Returning to the liquid acrylics, I mixed titanium white with a very small amount of ultramarine and lightened the middle-distance bluebells to enhance the sunny effect, and create some lighter flowers in the foreground. I then completed the tree in the middle distance with violet grey and cobalt blue and decided to leave well alone