Artists & Illustrators – September 2019

OUTDOOR PAINTING

I

wanted to conclude my series on

outdoor painting with my favourite

landscape in England: the view of

the River Wye from Symonds Yat

Rock. Set in Gloucestershire’s

gorgeous Wye Valley on the Anglo-

Welsh border, the river winds itself

around the hills in a horseshoe shape

here, the start of which is visible from

the top of Yat Rock. This is no remote,

mountainside destination either – it is

easily accessible from the car park

via wooden walkways, making it easy

to carry your kit to the top.

Like the cliffs at Beer in Devon that

we tackled in the last issue, Symonds

Yat Rock is another place that seems

almost engineered in its perfection.

It has everything: aerial perspective,

clearly defined planes, hills,

patchwork fields, woodland, a river

and a natural composition perfectly

arranged for you. You can’t ask for

more from a potential subject.

WHAT IS A

“SOFTEDGE”?

A soft edge is a smooth paint

transition created by working

“wet into wet” – using wet paint

on wet paint. I carefully pull one

colour into an adjacent colour as

I make my stroke, as seen in the

tree reflections in the river.

Another method is to use a

clean, dry brush with splayed

hairs, as they create a softer

stroke. Simply pull the brush over

the area you want to soften until

it looks soft enough for the

object you’re describing.

Try completing a whole

painting without blending any

edges at all and then just do a

few at the end to the areas that

really need it. The contrast will

create a more dynamic piece.” 1

SCALE DOWN

I began by marking out the

composition with diluted paint, which

can easily be wiped away if mistakes

are made. This scene was painted

smaller than sight size [see issue

405], which is harder, but necessary

here in order to get it all in and do the

view justice. I really slow down when

I’m doing the initial sketch in less than

sight-size proportions as I can’t use

the normal trick of looking rapidly

between painting and scene to check

for areas “popping” to denote

mistakes in drawing. Everything pops

when you’re painting a wide scene on

a smaller board, so you have to

progress slowly and check carefully

that the ratios between the main

shapes are correct.

I wanted the river winding through the

painting like a snake and leading the

eye up towards the horizon, so I

choose to have quite a thin area of

sky, maybe a sixth of the total height.

This is still an indirect application of

the “rule of thirds” [see issue 405] in

that six is a multiple of three.