Tuesday 22 March 2011

Sketchbook ideas and colour plans




A4 sketchbook pages of plans and ideas in watercolour pencil.

I've been playing with initial ideas in my sketchbook today planning my next set of paintings. I like to have a few things on the go so that when I need to rest my eyes from one there is something else to be working on. The idea for the first two are from the charcoal drawings that I did a short while back combined with other sketches. The moon ones are memory pieces from Saturdays perigee moon, it looked amazing reflected in the sea. Early evening it seemed huge, hard edged and was so orangey yellow turning paler and brighter with a soft halo around the edge as the night wore on. I'm particularly looking forward to painting the moon reflected on the sea with groynes silhouetted.

Now I have a rough concept of what I want to do I'll get out gathering some more references and going through old sketchbooks to see what will be useful. I'd like to keep these fairly small, maybe about 14cm squared, pretty much the scale these initial ideas are. It's so exciting to have a plan....

Did anyone else get out sketching the moon at the weekend?

6 comments:

Leovi said...

Beautiful sea, I like them all.

Jeanette Jobson said...

Its good to work out ideas on paper first, I like to do that too. It was too cloudy here to see the moon. I'm envious you could view it and then do some memory sketches from it.

Lisa Le Quelenec said...

Thank you Leovi, much appreciated.

Hi Jeanette, it's rotten luck that you didn't get to see the moon that night. I had been keeping everything crossed for weeks that we would have clear skies but you can never call it. I'm trying Loriann's process for relying on memory for some things, It's amazing if I know I won't have a reference how much more attention to little details I pay. Even though these sketches are scribbley I think I've made enough of a mental note to be able to paint the reflections and get the colours and so on, hopefully anyway.

loriann signori said...

Brava, my friend!!! There you are exercising your memory muscle. I love the middle very dark one and the top one in browns. Isn't amazing how quickly the sky color changed with that lovely Peregrine moon? I can't get enough of it!

Lisa Le Quelenec said...

Thanks Loriann, it really was a stunning night. I've been painting and sketching moons over the sea today, I think full moons are becoming an obsession. Maybe I should paint it's other stages before people think I'm a proper lunatic...

loriann signori said...

Full moons are like that. Just accept and enjoy!
PS I have a bit of the disease to.