Gulls in flight - watercolour sketches

Gull sketchbook  25x5.5cm   ©2014Lisa Le Quelenec

The lions share of the pages from a watercolour sketchbook had been used up in a commission and I was left with a narrow bound book to play with. Using only flame red and turquoise FW ink I painted some diluted backgrounds and once dry sketched gulls in using only white gouache and pencil for the dark wing tips.

The few lines of poetry are from Pablo Neruda's Ode to the Sea Gull; '... ecstatic line of flight.' became almost a mantra as I tried to get the swiftness of the shape in one stroke. There is something very calming and meditative in the repetition of sketching in this way which I enjoyed. My aim was to get to believable shapes using only one or two brushstrokes. I found as I went along that the more I did the more I wanted to do until I had painted just under 150 of them! Then wondered how much better the results would be after another 150. Maybe another sketchbook is waiting to be filled.  - practise makes perfect after all...