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...

A heavy rain is about to fall

A heavy rain is about to fall   watercolour on paper   17x17cm   ©2012Lisa Le Quelenec

I was waiting for the next bout of heavy rain and looking back over some sketches I'd done a few weeks ago. Out came the dark watercolours again. I'm still using Daler ivory black, Winsor & Newton neutral tint and Winsor & Newton paynes grey with small additions of other colours on rough paper. The paint can sometimes granulate too much but I am finding a small hint of gouache can help to smooth through these areas and add weight to passages of the painting. I love granulation but you can have too much of a good thing.

Last night heavy rain pounded down. I love listening to the  racket it makes on the conservatory roof and glass walls whilst I am safe, warm and dry inside. It wasn't a night to outside that was for sure. This morning is glorious sunshine until the next weather front moves in.

Sketches from a quick trip

Well now, has it really been three weeks since I last posted? It doesn't feel like it. I've had a busy time with a lot of non arty things and a ten day break to Jersey in the middle having a good catch up with my family. On the trip out on the ferry we were just heading around Old Harry Rocks when a dolphin arced out of the water, had I been looking out of the window a split second later I would have missed him. It felt like a good omen to start the trip. I haven't seen them very often, maybe a dozen times, and when I have it's mostly been in Cornwall but the thrill of seeing a dolphin in the wild is just magic.

My good omen to start the trip didn't extend to lucky weather unfortunately with only a couple of good days of sunshine so not much sketching was done. I did manage a couple though... and I always feel inspired after a trip home. -I still call it home even though I haven't lived there for half my life :o)

From the ferry  Gouache  ©2012 Lisa Le Quelenec

Beach finds  Gouache  ©2012 Lisa Le Quelenec

Now to knuckle back down to work, exhibitions are looming and there's lots to do.

Contrails and sunset sketchbook experiments




sketchbook page ©2012 Lisa Le Quelenec

Inspired from the trip and mulling over the ideas of contrails and the setting sun I had a days experimenting yesterday. Thinking about the division of space, centre of interest and the fine line between representation and abstraction I made some tiny gouache thumbnails. These experiments may lead somewhere or they may not but it's nice sometimes just to do with know pressure of an end result or things looking neat or finished.




sketchbook page ©2012 Lisa Le Quelenec



sketchbook page ©2012 Lisa Le Quelenec



detail

detail

The two images on the left are details, hopefully showing the surface texture, of the study on the right that I did in acrylic. I wanted to play with the idea of combining the contrails with the gulls. I picked a not so good placement for the vertical contrail, it has rather flattened the image. This is one very good reason for doing little studies like this in a sketchbook and not waiting to realise a mistake in a painting that has had more time invested in it. To see the order of layers and their colours click on the image to enlarge. I remembered to make the list this time - something I've been meaning to do before.

Saturday sketches

An hour at the beach on Saturday afternoon and very fast changing weather/light conditions meant sketching had to be super fast.

From overcast with high contrast like this......

















 

To much clearer blue skies and warm sunshine like this....  

(Photographs by His Nibbs)

Sketchbook pages

I've made a new tab that can be clicked on at the top to see some sketchbook pages. I've started with some pages from over the last couple of years and the plan is to update the page every once in a while. Below are a couple of sketchbook pages from the last two days:

I've been managing to get out early as it's been quite mild, although this morning I was very glad I had my gloves with me. These were both done between 8.30 and 9ish. It's a good time to get down there as apart from the birds and one or two dog walkers there is no one around and I've had the place to myself.