Your favourite place to paint plein air

Artists and Illustrators Magazine have issued an invite on their Facebook Page

We're working on a plein air painting special for our Summer issue, taking four leading artists out on location for the day to find out how they do it...

So we wanted to share the fun with you all. Tell us your favourite place to paint and why in particular you like it - the best responses will be published in the next issue!

As regular readers will be aware, "places to paint" is one of the perennial themes of this blog.

You can find recommendations on the Places to Paint Page at the top of this blog.

• This lists all the past blog posts about places to paint chosen by contemporary artists and past masters
• The intention is to try and an inventory or gazeteer of good places to paint and it currently includes "places to paint" in the UK, Europe, North America and Asia.

Feel free to write and let me know if you have a blog post recommending a place to paint.

HOW YOU CAN GET INVOLVED: You are invited to contribute to the project and write a blog post and tell us about where is your favourite place to paint - and why. If you'd like to share, feel free to say what's your favourite place to paint (and you don't have to stop at just one!) You need to:

• EITHER send me a link to a blog post in which you have written about your favourite place to paint. This should say why you find it stimulating.
• OR contact me (see column on right) about doing a guest post for this blog about the place which inspires you to paint. The post should be between 350 and 1,000 words and should include a couple of good quality web ready images.

I've not got one favourite place to paint.  I'd be cogitating for a long time if I had to make it just one! 

Here's one of my favourite places to draw - sat next to the Prime Meridian Line at the top of the hill in Greenwich Park (see Greenwich Park Panorama).  It's a fabulous view and it always looks different - plus it's just across the river from where I live!  This one was to record the Olympic Equestrian Arena in Greenwich Park last summer.  I'm thinking next time I need to take a big roll of paper!

The panoramic view from the top of the hill in Greenwich Park
- complete with Equestrian Arena for the Olympics 2012
pen and ink and coloured pencils,
11" x 48"
(3 double page spreads 11" x 16" in Large Moleskine Sketchboook)
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

(Apologies for the long gap in posting to this blog.  I've been having eye surgery. Proper normal blogging will resume in July when I get my new glasses for reading and computer work.)

'Dieppe from the East' by John Sell Cotman and JMW Turner

This post is about two paintings of Dieppe painted by JMW Turner and John Sell Cotman at more or less the same time - give or take a year!  It also covers the concept of staffage and how to access Turner's sketchbooks

You can see both paintings - hung next to one another in  Cotman in Normandy - the new exhibition of watercolour paintings, drawings and etchings by John Sell Cotman at Dulwich Picture Gallery.

The Cotman painting was definitely produced in his studio and the Turner was either painted on a loose leaf of watercolour paper while in Dieppe or was worked up as a colour study from his sketchbook.  They neatly contrast the different approaches and styles of the two artists when faced with the identical view.  (See my Review: Cotman in Normandy - at Dulwich Picture Gallery on Making A Mark for the explanation of why all Cotman landscapes were done in his studio.)

Dieppe from the heights to the East of the port (1823) by John Sell Cotman
Graphite and watercolour with pen and ink and scratching out of the paper
Victoria and Albert Museum

Dieppe from the East (?) (1826-7) by JMW Turner
Graphite and watercolour on paper
Turner Bequest

Turner's 1826 French tour began at Dieppe towards the end of August. His first sketchbook (no.5) includes only a general view of the town of the kind he had already noted two years earlier. But it seems that he also made some sketches on loose sheets of paper. On these he again recorded the quaysides, which had formed the subject of his large oil painting of 1825 (Frick Collection, New York)

Interestingly the description of the work in the exhibition indicates that this watercolour was probably developed from the 1821 sketchbook and produced as part of an unrealised sceheme to represent both sides of the Channel.

Hockney: sketchbooks, iPad sketching and the Yosemite Valley

This post is about Hockney's sketching and painting using sketchbooks and iPads. and is part of a series of posts about specific aspects of the David Hockney RA - The Bigger Picture exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts.  This exhibition is largely about his recent work drawing and painting the landscapes of the Yorkshire Wolds - but images of the Yosemite Valley in October creep in at the end!

Unfortunately the images made available by the Royal Academy are very limited and hence I'll be linking where I can to images elsewhere.  I don't have any image at all to show you what the Yosemite images look like - more's the pity.

The Sketchbooks

"Everything begins with the sketchbooks"
David Hockney

Gallery 12 is a room full of sketchbooks.  iPads are hung on the wall about the sketchbook proper and loop through images from the sketchbook show below.  There's a fairly good correlation between the image on screen and that in the sketchbook.

The main reason for studying the sketchbooks is to see how he chooses and isolates elements in the landscape and tries it out in different ways before making the commitment to a more involved sketch on the ipad or a "proper" painting using watercolours or oils.

There's one sketchbook with a concertina fold which he has used to record all the plants in a hedgerow.  It reminded me of how many of the landscape paintings include portrayals of the plants which are the minor players in the grander scheme of things.

There's a sense of the sketchbooks being the first step in a process which progresses from a quick drawing done from observation to an enormous painting.  The sketch for the painting used to advertise the exhibition is in the display - drawn using coloured crayons in April/May 2008.  It was first drawn in a charcoal and crayon as a landscape format double page spread in a sketchbook - and measures 21 x 60cm.  It's remarkably similar to the final painting (below) which was painted on 15 canvases and is approximately 10 times bigger.

David Hockney 
Winter Timber, 2009 
Oil on 15 canvases, 274 x 609.6 cm 
Private Collection 
Copyright David Hockney 
Photo credit: Jonathan Wilkinson

The colours used in the sketches seems to be a bit of a test for "what works".  While sympathetic to the natural colour palette of the countryside, the colours he uses are often rather more vivid.

This is a fast slideshow of Hockney creating another painting in the series related to the trees which were cut down.  From this you can see how he works from smaller sketches both to get the painting started and also to refine the final colour palette.  The sketches are essential to both the composition and design, the tonal values and the colour palette.

It seems as if the whole process for the larger paintings works as follows:

• sketchbook study - identifies what interests him
• charcoal drawing which is more refine - defines shapes and tonal values
• small colour oil sketches - initial plans for paintings
• large single canvas oil paintings
• multi-canvas-larger paintings - which are developed from all the supporting material back in the studio

The sketchbooks he uses are of every size and they vary in the weight of paper - although it looks like they're all capable of taking watercolour sketching.  He mostly sketches in watercolours, although he sometimes uses a graphic pen - especially if drawing people.  He also uses felt markers, coloured pencils and crayons.  I think it's very likely that he's mostly using Neocolor II wax crayons judging by the marks made and the fact that he then sometimes uses water to create a wash after he's completed the sketch.

He's an inveterate panoramic double page spread man - done in landscape format sketchbooks!  (I felt better about my sketching and own sketchbooks as a result.  I keep increasing the size of my sketchbooks and every time I do I seem to still want to use the double page spread.  I've only finally stopped and stuck to one sheet after I got to the A3 sketchbook!)

You can read my Book review: A Yorkshire Sketchbook by David Hockney on Making A Mark reviews.  You can also view the Yorkshire Sketchbook (Yorkshire 04) on the official Hockney website (please note Hockney is a stickler for copyright - so no stealing images from the website!)

RECOMMENDED (for fans only) - This is the nearest you'll ever get to handling a Hockney sketchbook.

The iPad Sketches

David Hockney 
The Arrival of Spring in Woldgate, East Yorkshire in 2011 (twenty eleven) - 2 January 
iPad drawing printed on paper 
144.1 x 108 cm; one of a 52-part work 
Courtesy of the artist 
Copyright David Hockney

Gallery 12 also houses 6 iPads which are set up to run through all the iPads sketches in sequence.

I was disappointed to see that there is no iPad set up to show how he makes his sketches while using the Brushes app for his iPad (which won the Apple Design Award in 2010).  The Brushes app has a very neat aspect to its functionality which shows you how you constructed your drawing - in stages, one stroke at a time!

One of the films makes it clear that Steve Jobs would not have been happy - as he clearly uses a stylus to draw.  It looks very like the one I bought and promptly lost!

The iPad sketches are interesting - mainly because it was not apparent to me until I visited this exhibition just how big iPad sketches can be printed.  Of course the great thing about the iPad is you can move in and out of an area of the artwork.  If you know you're going to print big you can adjust the level you work at.

I'm not actually quite sure when they stop being sketches and start being paintings in their own right - although I guess it might be something to do with how long they take to do and refine.  We also need to remember for all the iPad work we see in the show there's bound to be a lore more which just didn't work - just as there always is in any sketchbook.

The 51 iPad sketches which form part of The Arrival of Spring in Woldgate, East Yorkshire 2011 (twenty eleven) are all printed on paper which is 144cm x 108cm (that's c. 57" x 42").

I had no idea one could contemplate digital sketches on an iPad translating through to work of that size.  I guarantee there will be quite a few wiPad owners looking at their iPads with renewed interest after seeing this exhibition.  Me for one!  The main reason being that at the end of the day these are still unique hand drawn paintings.  You can see all the marks.  It doesn't look like a hyper-realistic photograph.  You know a person created it!

This in part is, I guess, Hockney's response to all the people who are photoshopping photographs and then calling it art.  His preoccupation is with the eye, the hand and the heart and having all three working together to produce the image.

[Note:  I'm trying to find out what software is used to produce the very large prints - and will report back!]

The Yosemite Valley Sketches

I'm really surprised not to have an image of these iPad sketches.  They are simply ginormous!  They're also displayed in a small gallery so that one gets the sense of the enormity of the place itself.

I'm guessing that they must have given the publishers of the catalogue and the gallery guide a bit of a rollercoaster ride too - as Hockney produced these specifically for the exhibition but only produced them between October 5th and October 16th 2011!!!

The catalogue indicates he's using a special piece of software which prevents the iPad drawings from pixelating as they are increased in size.  (see How to produce a large 300dpi TiFF print of an iPad sketch for my best guess at the moment of what they are doing)

However the super ginormous Yosemite sketches are in effect like his multi canvas paintings.

The overall dimension of most is 365.8 x 274.3cm (That's 144inches x 108" or 12 feet by 9 feet).  However they are actually printed on six sheets of paper mounted on six sheets of dibond.

So now you know!

You too can have an iPad sketch enlarged to a 12 foot by 9 foot image!

Sketching Constable's Cornfield

After Constable's 'The Cornfield' (1826)

 9" x 6", pen and sepia ink in large Moleskine Sketchbook

copyright Katherine Tyrrell

I spent yesterday evening (see Museums at Night starts tonight!) in the National Gallery in London sketching John Constable's The Cornfield in pen and sepia ink.

The title seems first to have been used by the subscribers who presented the picture to the National Gallery. Constable referred to it familiarly as 'The Drinking Boy'. It probably shows a lane leading from East Bergholt towards Dedham; the distant church could be an invention.

The painting was exhibited several times during Constable's lifetime, first at the Royal Academy in 1826.

It's interesting that even though it's supposed to be of Fen Lane near his home, he's used artistic licence and introduced a church into the background.  fen Lane is now called Flatford Lane.

I like sketching large paintings in art galleries and museums in monochrome.  It means you look at it more closely while trying to detect the design of the tonal values.  I also don't try to be precise when I sketch.  Most of this is done with scribble hatching - although I start to work smaller and smaller areas as I progress.

It's also fascinating trying to sketch the paintings of artists who themselves frequently used a sketchbook as a start to creating their paintings of landscapes.  I've seen Constables sketchbooks and they're tiny but very effective!

It seems likely that the painting in the National gallery was painted from sketchbooks and an initial start on site.

I think this painting in the Tate is the same view the other way on.  Its caption is as follows

Constable and his wife Maria took a long holiday in Suffolk in 1817. This was to be the last time he painted directly in oils in the vicinity of East Bergholt. Constable began several canvases outdoors without finishing them, perhaps in order to secure as much fresh material as possible in the time. Some parts of this canvas are painted to a fair degree of finish, whilst others are left in a more sketchy state.

Fen Lane, East Bergholt

John Constable

Tate Britain

I think I might try and locate the original site for both these paintings. There's a good guide to walks around Flatford and East Bergholt including one which identifies Fen lane on the AA website - see Constable Country at Flatford Mill.

The bend appears to be round about #3 on the map!

You too can paint a Turner Sunset...

The Decline of the Carthaginian Empire
JMW Turner - exhibited 1817
Tate Britain

...or at least you can if you live in the UK and Northern Europe due to the eruptions of Eyjafjallajökull!

The nature of the sunsets in the next few days should be "good" ie much influenced by the volcanic ash in the ash plume which is tracking its way from Iceland across the UK and on into northern Europe.

What you can see below is the estimated areas being affected by the ash plume from the Met Office's Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre in London (What do you mean you didn't know we had one of those? ;) )


This is an article Volcano's Eruption Colors World's Sunsets which explains why volcanic ash colours sunsets

Turner painted his sunsets after the ash plume caused by a succession of major volcanic eruptions leading to the Mount Tambora eruption of 1815, which was the largest known eruption in over 1,600 years. This turned 1816 turned into the year without a summer as the volcanic ash travelled around the earth.

Interestingly what I noticed when going through the catalogue of Turner's works for 1815-1818 was how few paintings he painted in 1816 other than some very big 'set pieces' which go with the painting at the top of this post.

Maybe the explanation can be found in his journals?

In Andrew Wilton's book about Turner (Turner in His Time, Revised and Updated Edition) he quotes Turner as writing in a letter dated 11 September 1816

As to the weather, there is nothing inviting it must be confessed. Rain, Rain, Rain, day after day. Italy deluged. Switzerland as wash-pot. All chance of getting over the Simplon or any of the passes now vanished like the morning mist.

However matters got more interesting when I looked at the sketchbooks.

This is a link to Turner's Skies Sketchbook of 1816 - after the eruption and the volcanic ash plume were making themselves felt in Europe. If you keep looking, in amongst the studies of clouds, the deep orange sunsets keep popping up.

and finally....

Back in 2008, the Guardian had an article about How old masters are helping study of global warming which says

The team found 181 artists who had painted sunsets between 1500 and 1900. The 554 pictures included works by Rubens, Rembrandt, Gainsborough and Hogarth. They used a computer to work out the relative amounts of red and green in each picture, along the horizon. Sunlight scattered by airborne particles appears more red than green, so the reddest sunsets indicate the dirtiest skies. The researchers found most pictures with the highest red/green ratios were painted in the three years following a documented eruption. There were 54 of these "volcanic sunset" pictures.

Prof Zerefos said five artists had lived at the right time to paint sunsets before, during and after eruptions. Turner witnessed the effects of three: Tambora in 1815; Babuyan, Philippines in 1831, and Cosiguina, Nicaragua, in 1835. In each case the scientists found a sharp change in the red/green ratio of the sunsets he painted up to three years afterwards.

Links: J.M.W. Turner - Resources for Art Lovers

Turner's Sketchbooks: 1790s

JMW Turner seems to have been a bit of a hoarder and kept an awful lot of his artwork and preparatory work. Fortunately for us, the Turner Bequest gave all this work to the country and this bequest included all his surviving sketchbooks which were mainly used for plein air landscape sketching on his travels.

They have been digitized and very systematically put online in a very detailed way (eg each page with a drawing has a web page) and you can find all the Turner Sketchbooks online on the Tate Britain website.

The sketchbooks are accessible in a considered structure and academic way. They are not small and many run to over a hundred pages. If you want to study I recommend setting aside some time to have a realy good look.

If you click one of these links below it presents you with the sketchbook. You can then navigate through the sketchbook using the arrow keys. If you click on an image it will appear larger and you can then see details of what it is thought to be and its size and what media were used to produce it. If you then click the image again it will appear at an even larger size. You also have the option to view a digitally enhanced image.

You will then see how 'sketchy' his landscape sketches are. Given there were no cameras at the time, bear in mind that these sketches and any watercolours done on the spot were the only reference material he had for producing much larger landscape paintings

These are links to his Turner's Sketchbooks from the 1790s. They include:

• sketchbooks devoted to specific places - almost all in the UK in this decade
• sketchbooks dedicated to specific animals (eg cows, swans)
• deliberate studies for paintings
• work done for Dr Munro's Academy which is where Turner worked with other young watercolour artists of his day.

The sketchbooks in order of age are:

• Academical Sketchbook [Finberg XLIII]
• Bristol and Malmesbury Sketchbook [Finberg VI]
• Calais Pier Sketchbook [Finberg LXXXI]
• Cows Sketchbook [Finberg LXII] - just cows! Sketches which aid the creation of paintings in the future
  
• Dolbadarn Sketchbook [Finberg XLVI]
• Dr Monro's Album of Italian Views [Finberg CCCLXXIII] the sketchbooks relating to Dr Munro's Academy include ones which Turner and Girtin worked on together. Girtin tended to do the drawings which Turner then coloured.
  
• Dr Monro's Album of Swiss and Italian Views [Finberg CCCLXXIV]
• Dynevor Castle Sketchbook [Finberg XL]
• Egyptian Details Sketchbook [Finberg LXVI]
• Hereford Court Sketchbook [Finberg XXXVIII]
• Isle of Wight Sketchbook [Finberg XXIV]
• Lancashire and North Wales Sketchbook [Finberg XLV]
• Marford Mill Sketchbook [Finberg XX]
• Matlock Sketchbook [Finberg XIX]
• North Wales Sketchbook [Finberg XXXIX]
• North of England Sketchbook [Finberg XXXIV]
• On the Cliffs Sketchbook [Finberg LXIV]
• Salisbury Sketchbook [Finberg XLIX]
• Smaller South Wales Sketchbook [Finberg XXV]
• South Wales Sketchbook [Finberg XXVI]
• Studies for Pictures Sketchbook [Finberg LXIX]
• Studies near Brighton Sketchbook [Finberg XXX]
• Swans Sketchbook [Finberg XLII]
• Tweed and Lakes Sketchbook [Finberg XXXV]
• Wilson Sketchbook [Finberg XXXVII]

Note the extent of his travels in this decade - mainly around the UK including a number of trips to the north of Britain and Wales.

Sometimes the descriptions are very specific, often they just state things like 'Part of a Castle with Sea and Hills Beyond'

Inscriptions at the beginning of
the Matlock Sketchbook 1794

How do the archivists know what he's sketched? In some of the sketchbooks he makes a list at the beginning of what's included in the sketchbook. Those of who work from sketches will know how useful it is to be able to pick up a sketchbook and look at a label or list of contents which saves so much time when you are looking for a particular sketch! For archivists this and Turner's very clear handwriting must have been a huge asset to the classification of his sketchbooks.

Besides inscriptions Tuner also used either end of his sketchbook to practice colour weashes. How many of us do the same?

Find out more about Turner by consulting my Turner resource site which provides links to further information about the man, his work and where you can see it and read about it - see JMW Turner - Resources for Art Lovers.

Find out more about Dr Munro and how important he was to the development of watercolour landscape painting in the UK on the handprint website.

Find out more about where Turner sketched in the British Isles by consulting the map on the website. Click a county or area to find an annotated list of sketches plus the images.