Swtan Cottages Anglesey

I have been getting my schedule together for the new season at my art group and one of the topics is pen and wash so thought I had better start a few practices as pen and wash is not something I've done a lot of.

I painted this particular subject en plein air during my recent trip to Anglesey though I didn't take a photo so had to beg this reference from Joanne Boon Thomas.  I have also done a couple of Brusho paintings of the same subject. My main aim when painting this is to try and capture the feel of the hedgerow in front of the cottages and of course Brusho is ideal for creating all that lovely texture... a bit trickier with watercolour though I think I am quite pleased with how this has turned out.

I have used a slightly different palette than the plein air painting substituting the Quin Magenta for Cad Red and adding a bit of Cad Yellow as well as the Raw Sienna but stuck with the Pthalo Turq and didn't add any other blues. I'm not sure I like Cad Red with the turquoise as it tends to produce and dull brown but livened up with the yellows I think it worked fairly well.

First step with this was to do the pen drawing. Obviously you need a waterproof pen and I have several. I usually use a Sharpie but am beginning to think it maybe a bit thick and looks a bit clumsy. When I was on a painting holiday in Italy the tutor there carved matchsticks to a fine point and used those with ink which produces a lovely irregular line....might have to get some of those together for the workshop. In the meantime I used a finer pen which in the end isn't really visible, so I might have to look at that before the workshop.

This is the reference so a slightly different angle than the plein air piece below

 Plein air painting where I was standing slightly to the right of where the reference was taken and I didn't have the same view of the attached cottage to the right. My focus was also the cottages and not the hedgerow and so I created more of a vignette...I don't think I would have had time to do the rest!!

Here is the pen and wash for comparison

It looks so different!! But I am happy to see how different the focus is with nowhere near as much detail on the cottages and more attention to all the foliage. Would be interesting to see how the painting would look with the previous palette though I rarely paint the same thing twice using the same palette so doubt I will be giving it a go.