Category Archives: drawings

Where is this place?

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Bowland landscape plein air drawing in pencil, A5

plein air pencil sketch, A5, drawn somewhere in the Bowland landscape, perhaps around Whitewell?

A place I went for a walk in about 15 or so years ago has turned into a mystical landscape somewhere in the back of my brain. I can see it now in my mind’s eye; it’s very green, cloudy and peaceful with nothing but hills and trees and it’s very damp, because it has been raining for a long time. In spite of being wet it is a beautiful place with rounded hills sweeping up and away and revealing further rises behind, which could be reached if you were to walk on, through a valley opening and beyond. It’s a very secret, mysterious place shrouded in mist. I know I made sketches of the landscape when I was there and I think I know which ones they are in my tiny sketchbook, but I can’t be completely sure.

The drawing above is the one I’m most sure of. There is also another one, obviously sketched in no time at all (maybe we were getting cold) that seems to be of the same place.

pencil drawing created in the Bowland hills

quick plein air pencil sketch in unknown Bowland landscape, A5

A subsequent watercolour sketch went a bit strange.

watercolour on Arches paper of landscape in wild colours

wild colours watercolour, 8 inches square on Arches paper

So I tried again, trying to keep the colours and shapes a bit more true, but it lacks the spirit of the place.

small watercolour painting of a Bowland landscape

somewhere in Bowland … a small watercolour painting

Finally I made the first sketch into a huge charcoal drawing as preparation for a possible painting.

A1 charcoal drawing of a Bowland landscape

charcoal drawing created from small pencil sketch of Bowland, A1 paper

When I walked in the real place I was on a camping trip with Andi, who was ill. My planned route turned out to be 14 miles in all: seven there and seven back. We did stop at an inn in the middle of nowhere at the halfway point but Andi was extremely stoical to tramp all that way through wet fields. I seem to remember him collapsing with a grateful sigh when we got back to the tent and not really moving until the next day. It might be interesting to go back one day but maybe not – you can never really go back. It might be better to reimagine.

Path to the sky and head in the clouds

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photo of path leading to hill summit

the path that leads up to the sky

This is what the camera says the hill known as Arant Haw looks like. It flattens out what is an incredibly steep climb beneath an atmospheric sky into something that really doesn’t look like much. I’ve seen that path up the hill in so many different lights now and it is quite haunting in real life. A path leading up into the sky – to nowhere. It reminds me of the ‘Indian Rope Trick’ – where does it go?

The path seized my imagination but I knew I couldn’t show what it felt like up there by painting the view in a straightforward manner. Some experimenting would be required. So, I made a few small oil pastel sketches one day in the freezing cold, standing on the ridge (at a slightly different point from where the photo was taken) and not aiming for realism but letting the feel of the place seep into my brain and out into the pictures. Then I put them away for a while.

oil pastel sketch of Arant Haw path

the first plein air oil pastel sketch

plein air oil pastel of hill

the second plein air oil pastel sketch

Next I went up there with a pochade box and attempted a quick plein air painting from roughly the same spot at which the photo was taken but the menacing runners appeared (see earlier post) and ran round and round and round across my path! Three times they trampled past until the sun was getting very low. Once I settled down to paint the light was fading quickly, just pausing to make the hill glow for long enough to allow a sketch of the bare essentials, then it was gone.

small plein air study in oils, 6x8, of the path up Arant Haw

the path up Arant Haw, plein air study, oil on canvas, 6×8 inches

So I had a rather feeble photograph, a couple of imaginative oil pastels drawn from further along the track and a plein air oil painting. I went home and created a third oil pastel, trying to blend the two expressionist attempts with the more realistic plein air sketch.

experimental oil pastel study, Arant Haw

the third oil pastel – attempting to combine the first two with the oil painting

Finally, I made four tiny oil on canvas compositions, experimenting with different approaches, attempting to find a way of representing the scene. Two I based on the original oil pastel sketches, one on the third oil pastel in which I’d attempted to combine my previous attempts and the fourth I painted loosely based on the plein air sketch but letting elements of the other studies creep in.

four tiny oil paintings, variations on a theme, path up a hill

four compositions: tiny experimental oils on canvas

Which approach, or combination of approaches, can I use to create a bigger painting? Or do I need to try another way?