Sketch from the middle of nowhere

Posted by: bobbywashere on: October 15, 2008

In: Sketches
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Study in Kilsney (biro on paper- 2008)

Inspired from my study of King’s Cross (Scroll down) I thought I would draw something from life which is the complete opposite. It doesn’t get any further away from the chaos of the city than from the middle of the Yorkshire dales (North England) early in the morning.

My journey started at 6:30 in the morning, on with the warm clothes, a sketch pad and my trusted biro pen. Whilst I’m on the subject of Biro a couple of people have asked why I use Biro and not pencil or professional pen and ink, simple I like the casualness of the medium and I tend to find when I use pencils I spend most of my time erasing rather than drawing. Using a Biro every mark has to be confident and relevant to the recording of the end image. It makes me a better and faster observer I find and I like the contrast and amount of grade (tonal depth) I can achieve.

Anyway back to the journey I got in my car and drove into the middle of the dales from Leeds, I pass Skipton “the gateway to the dales” and up into the rolling hills passing through numerous mini villages until I arrive at my destination Kilnsey (hour and half later). Park in the pub car park which I’ve forgotten the name of now and ask the Land lady if I can sit in the beautiful situated beer garden towards the side of the Pub/Hotel. As I finish explaining my mornings work, the land lady takes great pleasure in taking me on a tour of the Hotels various paitings of the famous landmark I’m about to embark on myself. The best of the lot was a 10ft by 12ft (approx) of the rock face emerging from what looks like a misty monring scene. Beatifully painted but has the look of a painting from photo, but I could be wrong. I order my coffee as I dont want to be too cheeky and the land lady lets me know I can fill up anytime I want, which is a good job as the morning cold was biting my blue numb fingers.

Zoom of sketch (biro on paper-2008)

You can see from this close up I have used different marks for diverse range of surfaces, this is for my future reference when I come to paint this rock beast. From the information I have recorded here I can tell the different grass length’s, the organic or living matter such as the trees, bushes etc and the arrangements of the rocks which slant slightly. I hope that makes sense?.

To view a large version of this sketch or study I encourage you to visit the large version on my flickr page.

A good tip why I encourage other artist not to paint from photos is the chance of missing something. A photo or a series of images with today’s technology can take a couple of minutes or an hour if your a professional maybe. What I witnessed over a period of 3 hours can not be captured via a lens including a video recorder. The eye is a great receiver of light and as the grey morning turned into blue skies and low autumn sunshine the cliff face which I presume is limestone started to glow. The autumn colours contrasting against the glowing rock-face is an experience I can now build into the final painting. If I had taken the photo in the morning I would have missed this event but even if I was there at the right moment the lens fails to capture the brightness. Some of you I know will disagree with this comment but it is my intention to paint the final piece including the transition from subdue to vibrent colours. How am I going to do that well thats for me to worry about (ermm figure out).

Actual study position

I thought some of you reading this blog might be interested in seeing where in the world I recorded my personal observation. As you can see from these satellite images it is in the middle of no where. I travelled far to capture this experience and encourage people, who can that is, to visit paintings you admire in person…to relive an experience an artist has left behind. There are plenty of photos on the web of the iconic landmark I have captured but human eyes tend to capture the sense of an environment the lens cannot. Looking at paintings is like looking at the world through another human eye’s or viewpoint. Should point out, although I sound very anti photo in this post I’m not, it is very useful for capturing large amounts of life expereinces through a lens that no painter could possible record in a life time.

Sketch zoom1

The dark snake like line running from top to bottom is the river wharf which runs right through the Yorkshire Dales, I have to say on this occasion it was very high due to large amounts of rainfall and it sounded very close and loud.

Zoom 4

: Zoom 5

I would be interested to know if you like this sketch or not? or even viewed this rock face in person? I would also be interested to hear if you like this location satellite feature? sometimes what seems a good idea on paper turns out to be annoying in reality. The idea behind it is to help people visiting this blog glimpse the wild environment around the observation, let me know your thoughts?