Blog Archives
The joy of Pen and Wash watercolours!
San Gimignano in Tuscany from one of my sketchbooks
Hi Everybody
I love to paint watercolours, and I have always been fascinated by this medium.
Whilst I get great pleasure trying to paint big and bold watercolours I often find myself returning to where I started , using a pen and wash technique.
The sheer pleasure of the pen marks casually laid on the paper which may or may not be important later on is such fun and then applying washes of watercolour over it in a not too rigorous edgy manner is very exhilarating.
Maybe I am easily pleased but this process, which has to be pretty speedy, has been the backbone of my watercolours for many years and I hope will continue to be so.
Pen and wash can be in my sketch books, or slightly more formally on Watercolour paper, I particularly like Arches watercolour blocks which are so great for use when travelling!
Let’s hope we can travel again soon though!
So here are some older and more recent Pen and Wash watercolours which I hope you will enjoy.
These first three were painted just this week from photos of previous visits and that is often how they happen. When I can in love to sketch on the spot but that is a luxury which I can’t do at present of course.
Two scenes for Yorkshire first
Staithes on the Yorkshire Coast
The village of Robin Hood’s Bay
And now a recent painting of Mousehole in Cornall and one of the River dart in Devon
Mosehole in Cornwall
Greenway Quay on the River Dart in Devon
A few on place in Provence
In St Paul de Vence
At The heart of Vence
Fayence
Seillans
And a quick trip into Spain and Portugal
Sintra
The Hotel Courtyard in Sevilla
Sevilla Cathedral
Salamanca
An finally , for now at least, a few of both Canterbury and York
Canterbury Cathedral from Mercery Lane
York Minster from the City Wall
The Shambles in York
I hope from these you can see the reason why I enjoy Pen and Wash so much. Immediate , Colourfull and fun to do!
Stay safe and well and maybe this year we may all get to travel again.
Brian
My Virtual Travel Journal – Part 1 -“The first 5 weeks in Lockdown”
I expect like me you are just wishing you could go somewhere, ANYWHERE I hear you say!
Well those days will return, but I have been travelling around the Globe quite a bit since the lockdown started.
It is of course Virtual, but by painting watercolours of various place I can almost escape there for a while. By the time I have trawled through old photos to find the one I want to paint the memories of these places come flooding back and the concentration of painting soon transports me to those far away places.
I have been posting these paintings recently so not many new ones but I thought I could put them together as a sort of Journal if only for my own amusement, and I hope yours too!
It all stared sitting in the garden in the lovely April sunshine thinking of all the gardening I should be doing, not to mention sorting out the shed, garage,study etc etc.
A corner of the garden
But soon the travel bug took over.
I had been worrying about a delivery of a variant of this watercolour of Porto in Portugal
to a customer in Toronto when I realised that I had not been to Toronto for a very long time and so the idea of a Skyline painting seemed the thing to do. Don’t ask why, even I don’t know!
Toronto Skyline
One thing leads to another and so suddenly I found myself seeing once again the Skyline of Singapore.
Singapore
We had stayed in the Ritz Carlton there the last time we were there and this is the skyline from near there. What a City Singapore is! I can even taste a spectacular meal we ate one evening there, in very authentic restaurant, of Beef in Black Bean sauce and Beef Rendang!
The trip back to the UK included a quick diversion to Chateau Chalon in the Jura in France. (That thanks to watching Rick Stein on TV). A wonderful area of that equally wonderful country with stunning ,and rather special Wine!
Chateau Chalon in the Jura region of France
And just to make sure the days were fully filled up, a return visit to Amsterdam, another great place to be.
But soon I was back in the UK with view of the Countryside in Kent that I can’t now visit and another view across the Oxfordshire countryside as the sun bursts through.
The Kentish Countryside
The sun breaking through the clouds
Being back in the UK brought on another attack of the travel bug and a long weekend in Tuscany seemed just the right thing to do. So after a brief stop in Florence to look at the the house located on the Ponte Vecchio —
—I drove into the heart of Tuscany. It has been warm here in Kent and so the warmth of Tuscany seemed just so good.
Basing ourselves near to San Gimignano, as we have done before, gave me some time to enjoy painting some watercolours, first of Piazza della Cisterna in the heart of San Gimignano and then the view from San Gimignano across the wonderful Tuscan landscape.
Piazza dell Cisterna in San Gimignano.
Tuscany
Luckily there was time to return to Lucca. A real gem of a City in Tuscany and a painters paradise!
In the Heart of Lucca in Tuscany
And so the first 5 weeks of Lockdown have let me cover a lot of miles without even stepping outside!
I hope that this Lockdown won’t go on too much longer but if it does my Virtual bags will have to be repacked and put into us again.
Happy Virtual Travelling Everybody!
Stay safe and well too.
Brian
Another watercolour of Tuscany – The wonderful San Gimignano
The City of Towers
In my last post I featured a watercolour from San Gimignano, so today I have painted a watercolour sketch of the Piazza del Cisterna, right in the centre of San Gimignano. This Cisterna in the Piazza was originally built in 1273 was enlarged in 1346 and painted by me in 2020!
This watercolour pen and wash sketch is painted across two pages of my Sketch book and measures 24 inches by 8.
Piazza del Cisterna in San Gimignano. Watercolour pen and wash sketch 24 inches by 8, on Fabriano paper.
I was a little surprised that I had not painted this scene before but by making it a large panorama I have been able to include a lot of this lovely Piazza. The Towers of San Gimignano are so unique and amazing ,”Manhattan of the 13th Century”.
Originally there were over 70 towers but today only 14 of them still exist. Only 6 are in this painting. Some of the Towers are over 150 feet tall.
In this painting I have included an artist, maybe we will be able to get back there before too long to soak up the amazing atmosphere, not to mention the great food, warm welcome and really super wine!
Also I have included a couple of previous paintings of San Gimignano produced whilst visiting there in 2013.
I hope you like them.
San Gimignano , The City of Towers from the nearby countryside Watercolour 12 inches by 9.(2013)
A styrene in San Gimignano. Watercolour 10 by 9 inches (2013)
I am trying to post much more often that I normally do so that there are frequent new paintings for everyone to look at, and as I am painting a lot more than normal it lets me have an outlet for all my artwork!
Anyway stay safe, and thanks for looking at my blog posts.
All the best.
Brian
Tuscany, Wonderful memories – We will be back!
Hi Everybody
With travel now not possible for the time being anyway, Tuscany will be very quiet, and we all feel for the awful situation in Italy and well as here in the UK and around the World.
But we will all return to Tuscany with its wonderful Cities and Towns, the Countryside, very friendly people, and the great food and delicious wine.
Just as soon as we all can, because it is such a magical place to visit and enjoy.
With that in mind I decided yesterday to paint a large watercolour (well for me ) of the sun rising across the Tuscan countryside. Derived partly from photos taken from San Gimignano looking East and other photos taken on our last visit to the area.
Tuscany. Early morning from San Gimignano. Watercolour on Arches Cold pressed paper 19 inches by 8.
Larger watercolours are exciting and challenging and this one has come out fairly well. It is 19 inches by 8 and will look nice mounted and framed I think. Something else to do!
Also here are a couple of very quick sketches, also from photos taken on that last visit to Sienna in Tuscany. These are both of the area away from the Campo in Sienna. There are so many wonderful sights there to paint but these two smaller sketches were also painted very recently whilst at home, sitting in the garden in the sun thinking of Sienna!
Early Lunch in Sienna. Watercolour 11 inches by 8 on Fabriano paper.
The Torre del Mangia Tower in Sienna sennets for the side streets. Watercolour sketch 9 by 6 inches.
In these days of isolation I am very lucky to have such an absorbing pastime of watercolour painting to while away the hours.
Maybe soon we will be able to get back to some golf!
Stay safe wherever you may be and lets all look forward to travel in the future.
All the best
Brian
Sketches in The Dordogne and Tuscany
Beynac on The Dordogne river
Castelnaud on the banks of the Dordogne River
Evening at Dome from Vitrac
Recently a friend and very talented artist, Peter Robson, gave a workshop which included ideas for silhouette paintings. I have tried it here with the view of Dome in the Dordogne from our hotel. Thanks Peter!
Monpazier is a Bastide town in the Lot and Garonne region of France, well worth a visit.
A street in San Gimignano in Tuscany. San Gimignano is famous for its 14th century towers.
The view of San Gimignano from La Lucciolaia Agriturismo, just 3 Kms away.
Tuscan farm with sunflowers near Volterra
A field of poppies in Tuscany
