A couple of posts ago I showed a sketch that I made while walking on the Great Wall of China, during our trip there in April. Now, I have been busy in the studio and have been tackling a watercolour of the Great Wall, based on my sketches and photographs.The Great Wall of China at Jinshaling. Watercolour 50cms x 30cms.
It’s quite a big painting, on a half-imperial (22ins. x 15ins.) sheet of Waterford 300lb rough paper. I completed it in one session, which is unusual for me, but this was one of those works that seemed to want to be painted, so it was a relatively easy couple of hours work. Great Wall of China near Jinshaling will be shown at my solo exhibition at King’s Lynn Arts Centre, starting on Saturday 7th June and continuing until the 21st June. I hope you can find the opportunity to call in and have a look at what I’ve been doing.
This weekend is Dersingham Open Gardens and the studio is open as part of the Dersingham Art Trail. Not a good day for the weather today, wet and very few visitors braving the elements, but that has given me the chance to do some painting. I’ve been working on some oil paintings today, and I will let you have a look at the results soon. Meanwhile you are very welcome at the studio during the remainder of the Bank Holiday weekend – see my contact page for the location.
From time to time I have a group of painters who visit my studio, several of whom come over from the Dereham area of Norfolk. On their last visit, a few weeks ago, we decided to have a look at an architectural subject as a change from the big skies of Norfolk. Searching round for reference material I thought, where better to look for architecture than Venice, and who better to portray it in watercolour than Edward Seago.Joan’s study of Edward Seago’s Venetian palazzo. Watercolour 15ins x 11ins.
So, I found an image of one of Seago’s delightful Venice palazzo scenes. Just a simple building on a canal with a boat and a couple of figures to add interest, but to successfully capture that in paint is not quite as simple as it might look. Drawing is the key to it, as any error of perspective will be glaring in a subject like this. As for those pointy-top windows, they must all be the right size, with the sides vertical and the points all nice and symmetrical – it goes on. We spent a lot of time with a pencil getting everything looking right before any paint hit the paper.
It just goes to show that there is never a bad drawing underneath a good painting. Keep working at your drawing, thinking carefully about every line, and your painting will improve my leaps and bounds.
One of the group, Joan, kindly sent me a photo of her finished piece and I am very happy to share it with everyone. Well done Joan, you’ve succeeded in keeping the painting loose and fresh while maintaining accuracy of drawing, a trick that requires plenty of practice. Keep up the good work!
Margaret and I have been travelling in China over the past ten days, after she expressed a wish to “walk on the Great Wall of China on my birthday!” Her birthday was on the 25th April, so on the 24th we found ourselves aboard a British Airways flight to Beijing, with our boots, cameras and sketchbooks with us.
The Great Wall is around 5,000 kms. long, but actually most of the sections that are still intact are within a couple of hundred kilometres of the Chinese capital. There are quite a few myths about the Wall, one being that you can see it from space. You can’t, apparently, but that doesn’t stop it being one of the wonders of the world, built with sweat of millions of labourers over hundreds of years.
Over the course of our visit we walked on several sections of the Wall. Some were completely original, and often not much more that a pile of stones dotted with the ruins of watchtowers. Others had been totally restored, or maybe even over-restored, and looked a bit shiny and new. The best section we visited was probably at Jinshaling, where there has been some rebuilding but there’s still a lot of original stonework preserved.Nine watchtowers on the Great Wall of China. This section is between Jinshaling and Simatai. Ink on cartridge paper, A5 size. Two of the watchtowers near Jinshaling. Ink on cartridge paper, A5 size. With the sketchbook on my knees as the Wall snakes into the distance. A blue sky day near Jinshaling.
When you climb the steep path to the Wall for the first time it is a breathtaking sight. The stone pathway is wide enough for five horsemen to ride abreast, and it winds it’s way into the distance, peppered with huge fortified watchtowers every few hundred yards. At Jinshaling it is very hilly, so the wall plunges and soars over the landscape like a huge stone roller-coaster. There are many, many steps to climb when you walk the Wall, it is certainly not for the faint-hearted. You must have good knees!
As is often the case on trips abroad, I didn’t find much free time for sketching, but I did manage a couple of quick ink drawings in my little A5 sketchbook. I will use them, together with photographs, as a reference for some larger works in the the next few days. Hopefully one or two of those will feature in my solo exhibition coming up in June. See the previous post for full details.
It was a great trip, and all the arrangements were very well handed by the trekking company Explore and their local leader Bobby Yang. However, after ten days of Chinese food for breakfast lunch and dinner, and the delights of some of the rather rustic hotels, we were quite glad to fly home!
This year I am celebrating twenty-one years since I took my first tottering steps on the road to becoming a professional artist. Back in 1993 I chanced upon a programme on Channel 4, presented by Alwyn Crawshaw, who was already well known as a TV artist. As the weekly programmes rolled by I became more and more fascinated with what a bit of paint, paper and a couple of brushes could do. And so, I had to have a go!
I duly got some materials and set about trying to emulate the great man. But I soon found out that I couldn’t draw, couldn’t handle the paint, in short I couldn’t do anything with watercolour. Luckily, I found an adult education class, tutored by an encouraging and skilled teacher, Mike Tuddenham. Little by little, Mike gave me the skills I needed to make at least a reasonable stab at a painting. Several years of practice later, I found myself standing up at an easel with twenty students watching me. The wheel had turned full circle.
To celebrate my twenty-first anniversary, I am having a solo exhibition of my work, old and new. Entitled ‘Stephen Martyn at 21’ it will be held in the largest gallery at King’s Lynn Arts Centre, the Shakespeare Barn. A lovely venue with plenty of room on the walls. I’ve got over fifty framed works already and am working hard on new pieces, so I’ll need plenty of space.
You can see the poster for the exhibition here, and I’ll send out formal invitations soon. The dates are Saturday 7th – Saturday 21st June, and there will be a Private View on the evening of Friday 6th. I hope you can make it along to the show at some time, it would be good to have a few visitors after all the work!
A new exhibition by the West Norfolk Artists Association opened today in the Red Barn gallery, King’s Lynn Arts Centre. The theme for the exhibition was works inspired by a piece of poetry or prose, and what a popular theme that tuned out to be. Nearly forty artist members submitted nearly seventy works.
The exhibition continues all week, until Saturday 29th March, although unfortunately not on Sunday. Otherwise it is open every day 11am – 4pm.
Where the Wave Draws Breath. Watercolour 50 x 32 cms.My own entry for the exhibition is this watercolour which I entitled Where the Wave Draws Breath. A poem by Algernon Swinburne was my inspiration, being a verse featured on an information board in the dunes adjoining Holkham beach. The painting itself is a little unusal as it had been on my pile of “the ones that didn’t quite make it” for nearly ten years. I unearthed it, completely reworked the sky, the sea (there was none) and the beach, and was quite pleased with the end result. Never throw anything away – it may take years for a work to finally be complete!
The verse that inspired the work is:
A land that is thirstier than ruin;
A sea that is hungrier than death;
Heaped hills that a tree never grew in;
Wide sands where the wave draws breath.
If you look back to my last post you’ll see that I recently ran an ink workshop at West Norfolk Arts Centre, Castle Rising. One of the participants on the course, Fay, very kindly sent me some photos of my demonstrations during the weekend, some of which you can see here.
I always appreciate it when people take photos or even video of my demonstrations, because I can’t, being at the coal face with brush in hand!Here you can see the inkwork before any colour goes on. I did this with a Faber-Castell Pitt pen, with a medium nib. The size of my paper is approximately 40 x 30 cms. I’m now applying the Rowney FW coloured inks, using plenty of water. You could do the same with traditional watercolour, but the inks give more vibrant colour. Nearly done, just a few more clouds. That’s a 3/4 inch flat brush that I’m using. Ta-da! A mount or mat round the work always helps.
From time to time I’ve shown paintings here that use ink in addition to or as a substitute for watercolour. Last weekend I ran a workshop at West Norfolk Arts Centre, Castle Rising which was devoted to these techniques, which can just add another dimension to your work. I had a good time with a group of nice people, and I got paid too – what more can an art tutor want!Cley Mill. Pen and wash using Rowney FW acrylic inks. Approximately 40 x 30 cms.
Burnham Overy Staithe. Pen and wash using Rowney FW acrylic inks. 40 x 30 cms.
Part of the weekend was spent looking at traditional pen and wash, but with the added twist of using acrylic inks rather than watercolour. The inks were kindly sponsored by Daler-Rowney and you can see them in the two paintings here, which I did as demonstrations. The inks are Rowney FW acrylic inks and they are available in a wide range of colours. They have a very high tinting strength and are waterproof when dry, so that you can paint over the top without disturbing the initial wash. The inks look very garish when straight from the bottle, but well watered down and carefully mixed the results can be more subtle. Rowney supplied a boxed set of six inks, called the Primary Colours set, which consisted of Cyan, Magenta and Yellow, which are the colours typically used in inkjet printers, plus three additional colours of Scarlet, Emerald Green and Sepia. It was quite a challenge to generate traditional watercolour hues from these but it was fun and good colour mixing practice. The underlying drawing in both paintings was done with a Faber Castell Pitt artist’s pen, containing black waterproof ink.
By the way, spot the flying boat in the painting of Burnham Overy Staithe. A quick “how to draw a boat” sketch that I did while working on the main painting!
Over the weekend we also explored using Indian ink from a bottle and water soluble pens, so there was quite a variety of techniques. My thanks to all the course participants for being so pleasant and fun to work with, to Daler-Rowney for supplying the materials, and to Richard and Ros Cartwright of the Art Centre who were as welcoming as ever. They do a great lunch too!
I will be back at West Norfolk Arts Centre in August for an outdoor sketching weekend, so why not join me working in pen and wash and other sketching media in the picturesque village of Castle Rising, Norfolk. You can find full details, including how to book, on the Arts Centre website westnorfolkarts.co.uk
Here’s a strange coincidence. I was recently commissioned to paint a view of a steam train travelling along the old Great Western line at Dawlish, where the line runs right along the sea wall. Imagine my surprise when, just a few days after completing the work, the line was washed away in the recent floods. It will be repaired of course, but for the moment there will be no trains at Dawlish, steam or otherwise!Steam & Spray. King Edward VIII heads west at Dawlish. Watercolour 15ins x 11ins.
Paintings of this type require a lot of care in the research and in the actual work. I was fortunate to know someone with a large collection of railway books, and from them I found several examples of King class locomotives which used to haul the Cornish Riviera Express in the days of steam. I selected a photo of a train in full steam, but of course it wasn’t at Dawlish but elsewhere. So, I turned to the internet, and found some video on YouTube of a steam train at Dawlish, with a rough sea crashing over the tracks. But, it was completely the wrong type of locomotive. With careful drawing and a decent knowledge of perspective I managed to combine the two images, but there was a fair bit of artist’s license needed to make the scene into an effective composition. I had to think carefully about the tonal values of the work, to give prominence to the train but also convey a feeling of a dark, stormy day.
It took several sessions of work in my studio before I was happy with the end result, but I enjoyed doing it. It’s always good to be taken a little bit out of your comfort zone with an unusual subject. The lady who commissioned the painting as a gift for her steam enthusiast husband seemed to be delighted and that made it all worth while. An old artist once said to me “you can never be sure how a commission is going to go down when the client sees it for the first time. But, if they say they like it and they pay, you’ve done a good job!”
The year is already twenty days old, where does the time go? I have been busy here at the studio, working on a commission for a client which I’ll show you in another post. In between times, I’ve had visits from several artists who like to come here for tuition from time to time, so I thought I’d show you what we have been doing.
So, here are a couple of watercolours which I did as demonstrations for some students earlier this week. A sky and a tree, what more does the landscape artist need! This is in the style of the East Anglian master Edward Seago.A view of Buttermere, in the style of William Heaton-Cooper, a well known Lake District artist of the 20th CenturyYou will see that they both use a very limited palette of colours, which I hope gives them a nice feeling of harmony and atmosphere. Never worry about making your colours too true to life, try and keep things simple because it makes for a more effective painting.
Both these works are based on paintings by well known artists of the 20th Century. You can learn a great deal from studying the masters, but you must never copy their work and pass it off as your own. Make sure that you add “after Edward Seago” or whoever to the title, so that everyone knows where the original composition came from.
Happy New Year everybody! I thought I’d kick off 2014 by showing you a scene of Ely Cathedral which I painted recently with my two students who come to the studio on occasional Saturdays, Chris and Pat. We spend a few hours sploshing in watercolour about once a month and they are both doing really well.
Ely Cathedral in Springtime. Watercolour 14 x 10 ins.If you would like to come to my Dersingham studio and have some tuition with me, then do get in touch. I have a small group on occasional Tuesdays, which is a “drop in and out of” group, and I also have groups of friends who come, as well as one-to-one students. There’s more information about both group and one-to-one tuition on my website Learnwatercolour.com There’s a link to the relevant page here.
It’s worth mentioning that I can also travel to you for art tuition, if that’s more convenient. Again I can tutor one-to-one, small or large groups, or give demonstrations and workshops for art societies. Do get in touch to talk about your requirements. My details are all on the Contact page of this blog.
