COMPOSITION
ABOVE Grahame’s
photo of the view
towards Tower
Bridge, LondonABOVE Tower
Bridge, watercolour
onpaper,36x26cmM
ost watercolour painters
who favour a looser
technique also seek to
produce a final painting that is very
much simpler than the original
subject. By “simpler”, I mean a less
cluttered and detailed appearance- something that is often quite
difficult to achieve in practice.
Creating a simpler composition is
not simply a case of leaving things out
(although this may well be part of it).
Instead, it is the much more nebulous
idea of painting a chosen subject so
that it appears to be very quickly and
economically executed, while still
suggesting the detail that is
effectively no longer there.
As I will show you in this article, one
sure way to help this process along is
to use a pencil sketch of the original
subject, drawn in situ, as the main
resource for the painting.
On the rare occasions when I travel
to any of the London airports, I always
try to get to the city for a couple of
hours painting and I usually head for
the River Thames where I can be sure
of finding something interesting.
On my last visit I enjoyed
a morning’s painting around
St Saviour’s Dock and after lunch
I crossed the river, ending up outside
the Tower of London. It was quite
crowded, a light rain was starting
to fall, I needed to get back to the
airport fairly soon, and the subject
didn’t immediately inspire so this
provided me with four good excuses
not to set up my easel again.
Feeling slightly guilty at this wasted
opportunity, I decided instead to
make a quick pencil sketch of the
view towards Tower Bridge. I confess
I began with very little enthusiasm
but, as is usually the case, I quicklystarted to enjoy the experience. When
sketching, particularly if pushed for
time, we naturally concentrate on the
parts of the subject that we find
interesting and our brain almost
automatically ignores or simplifies the
rest. It personalises the process too,
because what I find interesting may
not appeal to others. That is why
paintings by different artists of the
same subject vary so much.
I was not altogether unhappy with
the resulting sketch and thought I
might get a painting out of it back at
the studio. It was only later, however,
when I compared my sketch to the
photograph I had taken of the same
subject, that I realised just how much
I had abbreviated the scene without
really thinking. Also, if I only had
the photograph and not the sketch
I doubt very much if a painting would
ever have been considered. So why
should the sketch provide an impetus
to paint that the photograph – or
indeed the original subject – did not?WHY SKETCH?
The process of painting is not one of
simply copying everything that is in
front of us. Instead we should use
the real subject to create our own
interpretation of it. I believe thatthe