My drawings from the class.

 

I had some casual time yesterday evening away from home to do some sketching so I jumped ahead a bit out of Vol.1. to learn a bit about drawing water before continuing with the 2 drawings in that class.

This is my impression of the first sketch exercise. Probably a bit more than a 'sketch' - but I was having fun. I liked the intro about Sorolla and will probably do a small study about how he drew water in the various boat pictures. I think I would like to get a bit more structure to show the wavelets, hills and valleys inthe water.

Anyway, here is my first sketch of Vol.2.

 

Still Water Drawing:

I took a few liberties with this drawing: missed out the cable and decided to try and make some bright patches of the light reflecting off the water into the  arch of the bridge. The latter turned out more difficult and time consuming than I thought. An example being whether to do the hatching in the bridge along the perspective lines or following the curve of the bridge - so it turned out a bit of a mash of both in  the end :-/
I could probably do more colour in the sky and the trees (and reflections) like the sketch above.
Pastels and pencils on grey pastelmat. Digital frame.

 

 

A few tweaks later - might not show on here.
- put some blue back in the sky - oops
- put some blue in the water
- added some more ripples and highlights in white blue and light pink
- shaded a few more cobbles.




 

 on to the next session now I think

 

Water with Direct Sunlight:

Work in Progress: Somewhere near the beginning of session 13. 
I think I have many more layers to go and sorting out values.
Rembrandt pastels so - far.
I think I will switch to the pastel pencils and pencils now.
I seem to have gone a bit off script here :-/

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More work in progress. Following the narrative, but decided to exclude the sun flare and lights and inserted a little imaginary village in the distance (I think there are some buildings there actually).

Work in progress. More to do on the bridge walls, cobbles and sorting out the water ripples, values and tidying up.

After consuming great quantities of pencil in the sharpener - I wondered why not just trim the wood off. I dont need a sharp pencil for the colour shading.

I am enjoying following up the references to Sisley, Sorolla and Monet.

Final version of the Sunlight and Water topic.  I am fortunate to live near a park with a small lake and so I spent one evening watching the water rippled to try and see what they did.
I seem to be making as many mistakes as trying to adjust things with this one - so I thought I had better stop there and move on to the next picture. Digital frame.

 Water and Motion:

I made a start. At the end of session 19 before putting base colours in session 20. A bit of work to do on the left column still I think and Ive just realised I dont have all the top of the bridge stone in.
Light grey paper and I put some white on the sky and the distant water to start with this time.

Somewhere in the middle of session 21 after the colour base and putting in details. Still work to do on the concrete floor, bridge and of course the water.

 

 A bit more progress:

Well Ive finished for today on this. Im not sure if this is the final version. I have started making as many mistakes as doing things so I must be nearing the end. No doubt I will look at it tomorrow and wonder what have I done - ha ha.

I really tried to concentrate on the 'flow' of the water, the shapes it made and imagine I was watching it.
- added lots of broken marks in the roof of the tunnel as probably the water was making moving patterns on the ceiling and the photo is static.
- added some splashes near the shore
- added some detail and contrast out the back of the tunnel to add a bit of interest
- I loved the texture on the wall so I spent quite a bit of time on that.
- I kept the surface of the bridge fairly uniform so that it didnt distract from the rest of the picture and these was a quieter bit.
- lots of swirls in the water - I could probably have done lots more (Mt. van Gogh).
- wasnt quite sure what to do with the very dark pillar nearest so I added lots of marks. Might need to tone this down a bit. For some reason (to me) the bottom of the pillar is unsure if its a reflection or a structure.
- a few yellow patches dotted about as water reflections.
- tried not to over blend everything to mud this time  :-) 

I love the way the oval brown/orange pattern in the water reflects the shape of the tunnel roof.

Cant see it in this photo, but I added some gold and silver pencil highlights in the water - that was interesting to see what happened when the picture was lit.

 

mmmh
- Im wondering how to make the left pillar (and maybe paving) darker without it blending everything ?
- my waves look a bit calm !

 

Final version:

A few more tweaks this morning after watching sessions 22 and 23 - again:

- darkened the column on the left side. It was supposed to be dark to start with, so I dont know what happened half way my drawing.
- added a few more water splashes and waves
- reduced the contrast on the floor so its not such and eye -magnet.
- tidied some lines






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