Line and Wash – getting it right

Follow some practice with my new line and wash technique of sketching and looking at a number of sketches by Gerard Michel, I managed the following sketches, still from photos, but in the style that I want to do. One of the key points I picked up from the works of Gerard Michel, is that he does a very detailed sketch and then add the colour to accentuate certain aspects in the sketch, rather than try to do a watercolour painting. I applied these to the following sketches. These were all based on photos of De Rust, in the Western Cape. This is a very scenic little town with traditional Victorian style houses. I found that the sketches take a pretty average photo and bring out a dimension that was not in the original photo. I felt satisfied with these photos. I am now at the point where I am going to start to sell these sketches in De Rust.

Le Roux Street, De Rust

The following sketch was the first one where I started to used Paynes Gray. The colour just works within the style of the sketch. The colour in the one presented below looks somewhat washed out on the photo.

Burger Street, De Rust

In the next one I did a sketch of the main street in De Rust. It looks somewhat cartoonish, but I still think it is good.

Main Street, De Rust

Line and wash – first attempts

I worked a couple of options, playing with my new line and wash style. The first sketch that started to show what I wanted to do is presented below. I worked from a photo and took some artistic license here and there. I was satisfied with the the sky, the perspective and the representation of the vegetation. Also that I could still draw after not focusing on drawing for a long time.

The farm road

The second sketch that left me feeling satisfied was the “Old Farmhouse” presented below. In this sketch I felt that I started to manage with the watercolour and the colours in the sketch.

Old Farmhouse

Line and wash

I have spent some time over the last couple of weeks to explore a new art style. I have always been fascinated with the combination of pen and watercolour. I wanted to master this artform as a way to do studies for larger paintings that I want to do. We are on our way to De Rust in the Western Cape in the next month and I particularly want to use it during our month-long holiday.

So, being a researcher by heart, I started to do some research. I found that the style that I am looking for is called “line and wash” or “pen and wash” and it often practiced by a group calling themselves “urban sketchers”. It is more a style of drawing with colour than a painting style, even if watercolour is being used. Urban sketchers practise this method “en plein air”. Some artists that really touched me are the South African Cathy Gatland and especially the Belgian artist Gerard Michel. His style and the softer usage of the watercolours really speaks to me.

So I started to pursue this style. I first used the wrong pen. I was suggested to use the Pentel Brush Pen, but it is too thick and subsequently switched to Pilot Permant Ink Drawing Pens. I use a 0.8 and 0.3 mm pen. For the paint I decided to buy good quality. I bought a Winson and Newton Compact set containing 14 half-pans of Cotman watercolour. I realised that watercolour paint is much more expensive that acrylic! I dropped the Cadmium Red Light (orange) and replaced it with Paynes Gray. The Payned Gray turned out to be essential for all kinds of shading in the sketches.

I will make a couple of posts of my attempts thus far in the next couple of posts.