Assignment three

Here is the drawing I have done for assignment three.
  

1. I decided to draw a view of my garden when looking through my patio doors.  This view fulfilled the requirement to include in the final piece, items drawn from nature as well as items such as buildings, fences etc and would enable me to demonstrate my understanding of how to create a sense of perspective and depth.

2. To prepare I did a rough charcoal sketch to get a feel of the main elements in the composition.  I also took several photographs of the scene for a number of reasons:

(a)    Although I would be drawing the view from life I wanted to capture the particular way the light fell on the garden at a particular time of day - around 9am.  As the light would change quickly I did this to remind myself from the photo of the fundamental light and shade in the garden at that time and also the shadow under the patio table and chair in the foreground which I would add in at the very end of the work. 

(b)   I also used a print-off of the photo to establish the vanishing point in the scene - which I determined to be in the centre of page at a height in line with the top of the greenhouse at the back end of the garden.  This vanishing point helped me create a believable depiction of the patio in the foreground and the angle of the rectangular garden as it moved into the distance.  I also judged that the trees on either side of the garden also angled down to the same vanishing point.   With all other lines such as the buildings and their roofs - I just judged the angles by eye against the vertical sides if the buildings and judging one angle against another.

3. I planned the composition in pencil. I established the main angles using the vanishing point, changed some detail within the composition by using a different patio table in the foreground.  I moved a small statue I have to within view to add interest and help create better perspective.  I decided to keep the trampoline in the picture and took a picture of my daughter on it to add interest, to make the composition more personal to me and to and give a sense of reality and life to the scene.  The trampoline also helped to establish the middle ground.  The houses in the distance way beyond the end of my garden and the trees behind the buildings give the far distance.

4. I used tonal differences in negative spaces around subjects such as the statue, to define such detail.  Also I depicted the different tone of grass in the lower middle ground to that in the raised up grassy area at the end of the patio before you descend some steps – helping to give the impression of the true structure of the garden

5. Media: For many of the exercises in this part of the course I had ventured into largely new territory by using pen and ink and water soluble pencils.  I have enjoyed experimenting and practising with this media but was ready for a change with my final piece.  I did experiment with more water soluble pencils for this final piece, but finally decided to do something different and use pastel pencils.  I felt these pencils would enable me to achieve the more impressionistic style I prefer but also allow me to put in detail as they were in pencil form. 

My plan was to gradually build up the different tones from a relatively limited palette of colours.  However once I had experimented a little and embarked on the drawing, I realised the downside of using pastels in pencil form was the time it would take me to build up the colour and tone in the picture. I spent much longer than the suggested time adding colour and working on tone that after a number of hours, once I had put in all the detail and built up the tone to a degree, I decided to broaden my palette of colours and also use pastel sticks so that I could work at a faster pace by getting bolder and greater coverage. 

6.  I was inspired in my research by the fact that all the artists I looked at, played around with their compositions – from emphasising particular features of interest, playing with perspective and light to draw the viewer to the main focus of the drawing, to adding in features to a composition which weren’t really there in reality.  To the extreme of creating compositions that were largely fantasy or made up to tell a story as Claude did.  I therefore arranged my composition by placing the chair and table, by moving the statue into view, by adding my daughter on the trampoline and also a blackbird that I regularly see in my garden.  I also found it helpful to be encouraged to leave out certain things which I didn’t feel were helpful to include, though I only did that in a limited way by excluding the odd part of a roof or chimney in sight.  I hadn’t known that the great artists of the past did make up elements of their compositions as they did, even composing their scenes from a stock of drawings they had done previously.  It was also interesting that this way of creating work was often more highly regarded than drawing from reality.    I think this way of thinking is liberating.

Research point: look at artists who work in series with the landscape.

Look at artists who worked in series with the landscape such as Monet, Pissarro or Cezanne.  Make notes about the challenges they faced and how they tackled them.

Artists that work in series look to create a body of work around one idea, subject, theme, concept etc.

Paul Cézanne, 1839–1906, was a French artist  Cézanne painted the landscape and the people of Provence, where he came from and which he loved and felt no artist had yet given justice too.  His attention was fixed on the unchanging fundamental structures of Nature - a circumscribed repertoire of landscape elements, the hills and mountains of Provence, fields, pine forests, villages, rivers, lakes and Mediterranean coast. 

 

Cézanne's interest in landscape developed relatively late.  He painted and drew in the open as early as 1862 but it seems it wasn't until around 1866 that he ceased to see landscape as a backdrop for scenes and began to approach it in its own right. 

In his compositions it seems Cézanne's used paralells and horizontals to get a sense of depth.  This served to highlight the middle distance and had the effect of stressing what we see there.   

 

The Montagne Sainte-Victoire, c. 1887,  oil on canvass, Courtauld Gallery, London

The Montagnue Sainte-Victoire stands east of Cézanne's home town, Aix-en-Provence.  Cézanne often painted this mountain as it symbolised the landscapes and characteristics of his native Provence.   Cézanne cropped the view so that the branches of the pine trees mimic the mountains outline - a device that makes the distant peak seem closer and larger.
 

Cézanne was influenced by painters such as Pissarro in the more impressionist style which was to pay more attention to the subject's shape and colour than to the drawing.  The brush-stroke, the right shade of colour and the correct degree of brightness, to create impact.  To make short brush strokes and aim to record your perceptions directly – not be caught up by one point.  Paint energetically and don’t hesitate,  Don’t forfeit your first impression.  

Cézanne learned to observe and reproduce the diverse ways in which light was reflected.  He used aerial perspective that created unity of overall impact: created an atmospheric whole from the use of colour values in the subject and the light. 

Claude Monet, 14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926, was a founder of French impressionist painting and the most consistent and prolific practitioner of the movement's philosophy of expressing one's perceptions before nature, especially as applied to landscape painting. The term Impressionism is derived from the title of his painting 'Impression, Sunrise' (below).

Source: www/royalacademy.org.uk  

Claude Monet was the master of landscape scenes.  He rapidly executed them in vibrant oil paint directly onto canvas.  But it has come to light in more recent years that Monet's graphic work was an integral part of his creative process.  The Grand Journal, compiled by Domte Theophile Beguin Billecocq (1825-1906) who first met Monet c1853, talks about Monet going on sketching expeditions with the Beguin Billecocq family throughout the 1850s.  It talks of Monet constantly drawing, armed with paper, pencils, sketchbooks and watercolour - confirmation of his commitment to graphic techniques and an early interest in subjects drawn from nature to which he was to adopt later as a painter.    It speaks of Monet's choice to go to Algeria for his military service in 1861-62 so that he could study the intense southern light, exotic subject matter and heightened colour.  The Beguin Billecocq family would receive from Monet small drawings of fauna and flora landscapes, countryside views, inhabitants, rivers, buildings, mosques, scenes of the market and everyday life.    Monet also showed a commitment to pastels leading to him becoming one of the leading practitioners in the medium during the 1870s.  The medium sitting between line and colour, presented the possibility of marrying the dominance of line and the freedom of colour, towards which Monet naturally gravitated.  It also permitted him to experiment in a medium whose capacity for rapid execution allowed him to capture a sequence of different qualities of light before he had mastered the rapid application of paint on canvas that opened the way to impressionism in the 1870s. 

Close examination of sketchbook sheets that survive in tandem with the painted explorations that lead to Monet's great later work of the great Nympheas decorations, finally installed in the Orangerie in Paris in 1927, demonstrate that the artist also undertook extensive exploration in black chalk on paper.  It becomes apparent that, in the closing phase of his career, there is indeed a translation of the deft monotone chalk marks on paper into the gestural, paint-laden brushwork applied to canvas. 

Check and log - trees

How many different tree types have you drawn?   I have drawn more than a few different types of tree, but I am not sure of the names of the trees.  There were a range of varieties with different leaves and overall look.  The study I did of an individual whole tree is a common type of tree around my area. 

Some more studies :

 

What techniques did you use to distinguish each type?  I found I enjoyed drawing bare trees or bits of trunk and media such as charcoal really worked for these, However, I found foliage difficult.  I was influenced by the following image I came across of a small watercolour study of a Spruce Tree drawn by Dürer circa 1497.  It doesn't look too dissimilar to a tree in my garden that challenged me so much and I finally had to include in my final assignment work (it is on the right in the foreground).  I got from this image that if I could manage to establish the tonal contrasts  of the foliage and the general direction the branches and foliage were going - then by adding some detail at the extremes of the tree where the detail could be seen against the light or contrasting background - then I might have a chance of making the tree look like it does!  Obviously that is easier said than done and I can see it would require much practice and patience.

What did you do to convey the mass of foliage?  Focus on differences of tone and ensure that where the foliage was dense that less or no light could be seen through the branches.

How did you handle light on the trees?   Was it successful?  I would look to use colour and tone to depict light.  In my final picture I think I managed to convey the sense of light on the trees by highlighting with lighter shades of colour or even white.

Did you manage to select and simplify?  Look at your drawings and make notes on how you did this, and what you could do better? It got easier with practice to look at the subject of a tree and immediately see what it was about it that stood out.  I did the following quick sketch of a group of trees after many tree studies and really enjoyed it as it just stood out to me that I could quickly capture the different tones and get a sense of a group of trees.  I had more confidence.  I think the only way to do better is to keep drawing, experimenting and practising.

Study of several trees

I chose this group of trees on the local 'green' as I noticed that whatever the weather, they always cast strong defined light and shade between them. 

Studies of individual trees

I did a number of studies of different types of trees and parts of trees.  These images were the longer studies I did. 

The study below was a bare tree along a river bank.  I couldn't get further away so did part of the tree.  It was difficult to differentiate the smaller branches and twigs of which there were may.  But I think eventually I achieved something of the nature of the tree.

  

I found that to study an entire tree in detail was not easy with large trees, as I had to get far enough away to see the entire tree, its shape and the nature of its branches and foliage.   Yet being far enough away it would often be difficult to see the detail clearly enough.  I therefore chose a medium size tree to do in its entirety.  I chose to use conte crayons as I felt it would enable me to work reasonably quickly and although it did I was very much slowed down by trying to get a sense of the detail of the tree, particulary the foliage.

  

Check and log on line and colour studies

How did you use a limited colour palette to create a sense of depth?  I didn't explore the use of a limited palette as such, I did use pen and ink wash to vary tone and get a sense of depth.  I used a range of colour also, building tone to achieve a sense of depth.   

A sense of depth can be achieved on simple white paper which would represent the lightest tone.  Or any coloured background that represents just one tone - light, middle or dark - and by adding gradients of tone you can achieve a 3d effect.

Did your preliminary sketches give you enough information for your final pieces of work?  I found that my sketches were helpful to decide what view to draw. To look and then sketch a preferred view would help me decide.  At this point in time my preferred approach is to not overdo the preliminary sketches.  I prefer to decide on my preferred viewpoint by eye, then do a very rough sketch without too much attention to detail basically to re-inforce my decision.    At that point I may change the focus slightly, or not.  Once I have decided on my viewpoint, I would take a photograph to capture the image as it looks there and then as I intend to draw it.  Primarily to capture the light at that particular time.  Then I would start the final drawing, initially in pencil, and continue as long as I can drawing from life.   I would only refer to the photo if necessary to check over any detail or to remind myself of light and shadows at the time at which I did the drawing.

Would you approach this task differently another time?   I think that left to my own devices, I would see a scene and decide by eye if I wanted to draw it.  I would also take a photo so that I could use it to finish the drawing if necessary.   I am too impatient for preliminary drawings though I do see it as a good discipline and all the artists we are looking at sketched prolifically in preparation for final works.

Have you got the scale of the buildings right?  I think I managed to get the scale of the buildings reasonably correct.  Its all relative to what is around the building so the perspective theories really helped.

Have you captured the colour and atmosphere in your studies.  How did you do this?   Much of what I have drawn in this part of the course lends itself to more impressionistic style of drawing .  Trees, buildings, statues, everything.  Apart from focusing on scale and perspective, the subjects (and I think every subject) lends itself to a looser style and using pen and ink and water soluble pencils  - helped to create the impression of the subject once the scale and perspective had been sorted.  I wasn't so keen on working out the perspective but I definitely do value its usefulness and once I had got everything in the right place I really enjoyed adding the depth, tone and colour without having to think about the accuracy of the drawing.

Drawing statues

Despite being interested in drawing statues, I only did one quick drawing of a small statue in my garden.  I used conte crayons.  I don't consider it finished, but I managed to get an impressionistic sense of it and the light and shade.  I included it in my final assignment piece. 

A limited palette study from your sketches

For this work I went back to the view from the back window.  I understood that this exercise required me to choose a sketch to develop primarily using colour.  So I used the pen and ink sketch to determine the verticals of the primary focus and some of the other lines around that and then I started working with water-soluble pencils to build the detail.  I didn't really stick to the principle of a limited palette but used the pencils to describe the different colours and tones, particularly with the trees.  I then gave it a touch of a water wash in areas to deepen the colours.

A sketchbook of townscape drawings

I went to nearby village of Downe in Kent.  I chose this because I wanted to find something traditional of the area around where I live.  I like the use of flint in the buildings and walls which must be because there is a lot of it and I like that more traditional attitude of using available materials in buildings.  There is a church in Downe and I set myself up behind the church wall to see this scene.  I focused on the cottages in the middle.

They were built using a mixture of brick, flint and slate for the roofs.  I thought this mixture of materials would add interest and be more interesting to draw.  It was another dull day with no sun and so there wasn't a lot of tonal contrast to be seen. I did some preliminary sketches but they weren't very useful.  I found it difficult to quickly get the curve and accuracy of the angles of the buildings.  This could have been because in reality there were cars parked all the way up the street.  I decided to go straight for established my eyeline which was just under the little window on the front door of the central cottage and a vanishing point at the very edge of the paper to the left, and then going for the final drawing from there.  I did it in pencil.  I took a picture and then brought it home and added in the detail in pen and ink.  (see below)  .  At the top left corner there was a large overhanging tree which I didn't include except for hinting at its outline.  It literally covered the rest of the scene into the distance. 

Study of a townscape using line

I did this initial study freehand, without a ruler and by eye.  It was a rainy grey afternoon so that must have blurred the view a bit and there wasn't so much light and dark contrast. I chose the view from my back bedroom window because the weather was against me going out and I found a focus in the next door pergola which covers a fish pond.  It is a strong feature that I thought would help me in judging the angles of everything else.  That and the horizonals in the pergolas 'legs' and the top and side of the garage in the very foreground.

I then had another go, weather was similar, and this time I established my eyeline was somewhere around the lower part of the window featured in the house in the distance and my vanishing points to the right and left were off the page.  I don't think I did too badly by eye the first time but the second attempt looks more accurate.

Check and log - perspective

What problems did you find in executing perspective drawings?
I found using one point/or parallel perspective really useful.  I just relied on it and didn't need to think about the angles any more as I would have done had I not considered it.  I also found using angular perspective very helpful in doing the particular drawing I did.  

I think that if there is a subject where simple perspective rules can be used then its really helpful, but on many occasion I would look at a view and not be able to immediately work out how to apply the perspective rules.  It was hard when a vanishing point was way off the paper.  It also seemed hard to work out the perspective points in a busy scene, with lines going all sorts of ways and angles.  As much as getting the perspective right could help the execution of a quick sketch, to get bogged down in getting the correct perspective could also inhibit.   In a way,  it can take away the natural instinct of using your eye to determine relationships between lines and angles in a less complicated composition.

The merits of using, or not using, rulers as a guide
As someone who finds it hard to draw a straight line, I think I am better off not using a ruler as a guide as then I find myself drawing lines with it, and I need to practice drawing lines without it!  I think it helps to use a ruler as a guide when working out perspective particularly if there is a vanishing point off the paper.  But its probably best to continue to try and manage without it.

Angular perspective

I drew this view of a pub, putting the vanishing points at each side of the paper.  I felt it would take me significantly longer to draw the picture by eye using the vertical line of the corner of the building and judging the angles - so I went straight for establishing a vanishing point on each side of the image

and it helped considerably.

Parallell perspective - an interior view

 My first attempt at drawing the view through my living room door into the hall, by eye, wasn't very successful.  The red pencil shows the angles as they should have been, after I later established an eye level and vanishing point.

I repeated the exercise, this time establishing the eyeline and vanishing point first and it was very much easier!

 

Research point - The landscape work of Claude Lorraine and Turner

Look at the work of Claude Lorraine and Turner.  Write notes on how those artists divide their landscapes into foreground, middle ground and background.

It seems Turner followed Claude in using similar methods of dividing up landscapes. 

In the landscapes of Claude Lorraine, you often see the same elements appear, much like he worked to a formula.  For example the use of temple columns placed before a screen of trees or of architecture on one side of the composition and nature/trees on the other side.  

Claude used these elements in his compositions to create a better sense of depth and perspective.  Claude's preliminary sketches show lines indicative of perspective studies and also intentions to scale up his drawings for later paintings.  Claude’s drawn studies also demonstrate his focus on light and dark.  He seems to have used light and dark as a tool not just to depict a sense of reality, a time of day perhaps, but also to emphasise parts of his compositions to tell a story.

JMW Turner (Source: The National Gallery Podcast regarding an Exhibition Turner Inspired: In the Light of Claude,  Summer 2012)

This exhibition explored the life-long fascination of the nineteenth-century British painter, JMW Turner for the work of the seventeenth-century master of Italianate landscapes, Claude Lorrain.  Turner greatly admired Claude as a great landscape painter and aspired to not only equal him, but to surpass his achievements.  

 Below are two paintings on the subject of 'Tivoli: Tobias and the Angel'.  The first work is by Claude and the second by Turner.

 

 

 

Turner most admired Claude’s ability to give a sense of the special character of a lighting effect.  In the above painting Turner uses the Claudean model, structuring it in a way that follows Claude's precedent where you have a tree dividing the composition about a third of the way across the composition and there’s a great recession to a distant hillside, and as the forms move into the distance they become softer and softer.    The way Turner’s painted it, even though it’s an unfinished canvas, is much more broken down, not quite the same attention to detail.  Turner suggests things in a more abstract way; his colour moves from the kind of brown-ish foreground that is typical in Claude, to softer greens and blues as it moves into the distance and then the yellow in the sky is probably a pigment that was only newly introduced in the 1820s. So it is a re-thinking of the Claudean model.

 

Turner studied and copied the works of many great artists in his drive to become a great artist himself.  Aside from following Claude's lead, over a period of 30 years Turner taught the subject of perspective to the students of the Royal Academy. To aid him in his lectures he produced a portfolio of diagrams, demonstrating the theories of different artists and critics on perspective.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Check and log - sketches, studies, composition

In what way did you simplify and select in your study?  I looked for elements that would help give a sense of the space and depth.  I looked for variety of shapes eg buildings, fences, rocks, hills - a mixture in order that the composition would be interesting.  I looked for elements/shapes that would help me draw one thing based on another ie if I could draw an animal against a fence, relate the fence to a building - so essentially I looked for shapes of different scale.  I did leave out elements that I felt were not interesting or were unhelpful or unnecessary.

How did you create a sense of distance and form in your sketches? As I mentioned above, I think using elements of different scale helped to create a sense of distance.  I attempted to create a sense of form by introducing light and shade/tonal differences. 

How did you use light and shade? Was it successful?  It wasn't easy to focus a lot on this element when quick sketching.  I used light and shade to give form.  As in the coloured view of the farm, I also used it to give a sense of the natural light, the shade cast by the trees and also light to emphasise the foreground.  The hint of shadows under the animals give the scene a sense of reality.

What additional preliminary work would have been helpful towards the larger study? As I wanted to draw at the scene rather than use a photo at any point, I felt the preliminary work I did was sufficient and helped me achieve my end.  I think additional preliminary work would have taken more time and not been necessary.  However if I was working towards a larger study without any time constraint then I think more sketching, selecting what will go in the composition, study of the light and detail more would all help.

Plotting space through composition and structure

I chose one of my sketches from the previous 360 degree exercise.  It is a view from the farm.  Before I went back to the farm, I used my initial sketch and a photograph to position key structures ie the barns and the fencing.   I returned to the farm with my simple pencil sketch and worked on it with water soluble pencils adding in more detail, light and shade and the animals around at the time. At home I went over it lightly with a brush and water.

Drawing cloud formations - Conte and oil pastel

In the first study done in conte, it was early afternoon on a bright but cold day where the sun would come out occasionally.  The cloud was very bright white at the top edge creating a strongly defined edge against the sky.  I achieved the brighter lines of white by rubbing off the conte with a putty rubber.  The cloud was darker underneath.  I attempted to get the smokey effect of the thin cloud in and around the cloud formation. 

The study below was done in oil pastel and is a second attempt at a sky with clouds full of snow.  In order to get the uniformity of blue colour needed for this sky, I first lay down an undercoat of white oil pastel and rubbed it into the paper.  Then I added a blue, apricot and grey colour with a lighter touch.  This enabled me to get a variety of effects, eg smooth blue for the sky and more variegated effects to get the different tones in the cloud with the help of adding and scraping off colour.

Drawing cloud formations - charcoal

I began with some studies in charcoal.  It was difficult to get the smooth uniform colour of the blue sky with charcoal but the medium was good for achieving the fluffy effect of the clouds particularly when using a putty rubber.  In the third study the tone of the surrounding sky was darker than the darkest tone in the cloud








Research Point : Landscape drawing: Look at and research different artists' depictions of landscape

Joachim Patinir (c1480-1524) was a Flemish Northern Rennaissance history and landscape painter with a distinct style of panoramic northern Renaissance landscapes.   Albert Durer was a friend of Patinir and called him “a good painter of landscapes”.  This simple statement spoke a great deal as Patinir was a pioneer of landscape painting as an independent genre; he was the first Flemish painter to regard himself primarily as a landscape painter - someone that focussed on drawing and painting landscape in its own right rather than as a backdrop.   Patinir’s immense vistas combine observation of naturalistic detail with fantasy.   Patinir often let his landscapes dwarf his figures, making elements of his landscapes more spectacular than he would have seen in nature around him - and his figures were often painted by other artists!

Here is an example of Patinir’s work: The Flight into Egypt (Museum of Antwerp), oil on panel, created first half of 16^th century.  Note the very large rocks and the landscape features in the distance are painted with a green and blue palette to express the dimming caused by distance.

Source: Wikipedia

Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528)

Dürer was a major artist of the northern Renaissance.  Born in 1471 in Nuremberg he first studied to be a goldsmith under his Father, but later turned to painting.   Durer’s landscape watercolours are the earliest pure landscape studies to have survived in the history of Western art.  They were made during his journey across the Alps when he travelled to Italy in 1495-6 and in the countryside around Nuremberg on his return.  They were not made with particular compositions in mind, but together formed a stock of material to which Dürer referred when he designed background detail in his later prints and paintings.  Source: British Museum – Dürer, The British Museum Press

Dürer's practice of making studies from nature in watercolour and the use of extensive landscape backgrounds in his finished works played a further part in the development of landscape as a subject in its own right.

Albrecht Dürer, Landscape with a Woodland Pool, a drawing painted with a brush in watercolour and bodycolour   

It is generally agreed that the above landscape drawing by Dürer is one of the most sensitive of his portrayals of nature. Dürer was the first artist to recognize the potential of watercolour. Indeed, his work as a landscape artist in watercolour raised the status of this medium.

The scene above may be outside Nuremberg and was probably painted after Dürer had returned from his first visit to Italy, around 1496-97.  The drawing is unfinished at lower right where the white of the paper is clearly visible. Dürer's monogram in the upper centre was added later in another hand.

 

Claude Lorraine (born Claude Gellée c. 1600 or 1604/5)

Claude Lorraine was born in France, in the village of Chamagne near Nancy in the then independent Duchy of Lorraine.  In about 1617, after the death of his parents, he travelled with a relative to Rome where he studied painting through apprentiships.  Claude spent most of the rest of his life in Italy. Claude’s work had a significant influence on the future of British landscape art, not least because he was a great influence on both J.M.W.Turner and John Constable. 

By 1630 Claude's career as an independent landscape artist painter in Rome was flourishing.  By 1640 Claude was the most commercially successful landscape painter in Europe, and he remained so for the rest of his life.  From about 1600 Bolognese artists working in Rome and producing large-scale figure paintings, were painting more serene landscapes than had been seen before.  They were more restrained in form and colour and more balanced in composition, to serve as a frame for the human action depicted within it.  This style became a model for landscapists working in Italy at that time, including Claude, and for the rest of the century.

Claude has been consistently praised since his own day, as a painter of landscape and a painter of the effects of light. He was also highly regarded for the fact that he wasn't just a painter of landscapes but also a painter of stories, or histories as they were called.  In his day, great regard was given to painters who didn't only copy from nature but also used their imaginations to include in their paintings a story. This required the use of the painters imagination and additional mastery of painting human and animal forms, in action and with expression, within the landscape. Though Claude incorporated figures in his landscapes, from his surviving drawings it seems he was less interested in the rendering of the human form than the effects of light.

Claude took his inspiration from the Bible and the classical poetry of Ovid and Virgil. "Claude's landscapes cannot be seen simply as enchanting views.  They are peopled with gods, saints and heroes, and provide an idealised setting for incidents from myth, history and the Bible which may often have carried special associations for Claude's aristocratic patrons."...
Source : Claude The Poetic Landscape, National Gallery Publications

A work by Claude:

Seaport with the Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba, 1648

Laurence Stephen Lowry  (1887-1976)

A British artist well known for his drawings and paintings of  life (both industrial and urban landscapes) in the north of England in the 1920s/30s.

Lowry developed his own distinctive way of painting and drawing his subject matter, being the life and scenes that were around him in his everyday life.  This article below written by Bernard Taylor in The Guardian newspaper is a review of one of Lowry’s earliest exhibitions and says a lot about Lowry’s personal style:

"Mr Laurence S Lowry has a very interesting and individual outlook. His subjects are Manchester and Lancashire street scenes, interpreted with technical means as yet imperfect, but with real imagination... We hear a great deal nowadays about recovering the simplicity of vision of primitives in art. These pictures are authentically primitive, the real thing not an artificially cultivated likeness to it. The problems of representation are solved not by reference to established conventions, but by sheer determination to express what the artist has felt, whether the result is according to rule or not..."

Lowry’s style has been referred to as ‘naïve’ as well as ‘primitive’.  It seems Lowry struggled with his subject, finding drawings as hard to do as paintings.  He would do many sketches from life and then compose his pictures in a 'painting' room at home.  He frequently gathered various elements from a number of different studies to construct a composite that captured the essence of the scene he was attempting to create.

Lowry himself said ‘A country landscape is fine without people, but an industrial set without people is an empty shell.  A street is not a street without people … it is as dead as mutton’

Lowry worked in oils with a limited range of colours and on close inspection his paintings show he would work the paint with both ends of the brush his fingers and sticks and nails.

Though Lowry had a recognisable style of crowds of simple dark figures (matchstick men ..), it is said that after his mother died his feelings of isolation and loneliness were reflected in the changing subjects for his paintings such as derelict buildings and wastelands.  He apparently said of his work from the 1950s onwards – “Had I not been lonely none of my works would have happened”  It depicted deserted landscapes and seascapes and solitary figures/down and outs.

A Lowry

Coming out of school, 1927, oil on wood

Notes based on a BBC2 documentary about J M W Turner (birth date unknown. Baptised 1775, died 1851)

Like Lowry, Turner focused on the industrial landscape, but rather than depict that landscape on his doorstep he sought to depict the advances of the industrial revolution.  Innovation at that time.  Unlike other artists who lamented the changing landscape, he sought to depict  advances in industry and understanding in science and include it in his art as a thing of beauty just as much as the inate beauty of the natural landscape that it was changing.

His paintings provided a visual story of the industrial revolution and he reveals a sublime beauty in the changing face of Britain – celebrating it and not seeing it as the advancing enemy which would forever change the natural landscape.

Turner also used paint in a way that had not been done before in order to create the effects in his paintings that he wanted.  Mixing his own colours and thickly daubing paint onto the canvas in contrast to the very fine painting that had till then been seen in the Royal Academy.

Fishermen at Sea, 1796, Oil on canvas
The first oil painting Turner exhibited at the Royal Academy

360 degree studies

Using my viewfinder I selected four viewpoints at a local farm for quick sketches, with me standing in a central location and turning approx. 90 degrees each time to find a different focal point at north, south, east and west.  The sketches took me longer than 15 minutes each I recall.  I chose the farm as it is a large area with different focal points at every turn including trees, fences, barns, animals.

I worked with a mix of charcoal, charcoal pencil and conté crayon.

I feel with the above image I happened to get a feeling of depth.  The chicken in the middle moved off quickly so is not a very accurate depiction.

This image above is the one I decided to use in the future exercise  - Plotting space through composition and structure.  

Part 3, Drawing outdoors. Starting with a sketchbook walk ...

Starting this part of the course was difficult as the weather was so bad.  Snow and ice week after week and definitely very cold that standing still outside for more than 10 minutes in order to draw meant very frozen fingers!  But I persevered in drawing from real life rather than photos.

Here are four quick sketches I did for this exercise.  The first two are views of a garden.

                                          

Forgot my viewfinder.  Used graphite.  2pm on a cold day; didn't get much sense of light and dark really and found it hard to get straight lines right.




 Very cold so done quick as possible.  More atmosphere than first attempt but lots of rocks and lines going in different directions and it looks like I didn’t get them very straight.



I prefer the following two sketches which are views from the local church.  I think I have achieved a sense of depth and distance.  I think the horses in the foreground help to achieve that.