Preparatory studies: Experimenting with elements of aerial perspective, using the palette of Thomas Girtin in Westminster and Lambeth

Despite some theoretical knowledge, I had never before actually painted “aerial perspective” and therefore wanted to make some colour testing before approaching the exercises. I chose Thomas Girtin’s painting and tried to isolate the elements of aerial perspective that the course materials described. So I experimented a bit in my watercolour sketchpad. I chose the Yarka Watercolours which come in a box, anticipating these might be the colours I’d take with me on outdoors excursions. First I selected colours resembling those used by Thomas Girtin: Russian green, gold ochre, raw umber and neutral black. The green was a bit too colourful, but otherwise I found the hues were a good match.

      

Then I made one abstract sketch with just dots to try out colour contrasts. I wanted to have areas with strong contrast of reddish orange and green, and other areas with less intense contrasts by mixing in raw umber to tone down. I think the red-green contrast comes indeed to the fore, whereas the areas where colours are more similar seem to recede. The funny thing is that I misinterpreted the course text which referred to “Tonal contrast” to mean colour contrast and this way seem to have discovered another element that can add to a sense of depth.

I made a second page to look at tonal contrast, using the colour sepia. The idea was to see whether areas of high contrast, where very dark and very light elements were adjacent, would come to the foreground compared to other areas with more similar colours in dark, medium or light tonal values. I used geometrical forms and painted in portrait format. Indeed the highly contrasted areas seem to capture attention, compared to those areas with more similar colours. This may be a combined effect of my painting little dots and patterns of dark onto light background, which can be interpreted as the third aspect: More detail in the foreground. I feel that the darker colours in general seem to come to the foreground and the lighter colours recede. This would be the fourth element (lightening of palette).

So the problem with this kind of abstract experiment is that the elements are normally supported by the actual traits of the landscape and do not appear in pure forms. But doing this exercise helped me internalizing what to look out for!

Exercise: Aerial perspective in an uban landscape: Drawings
Exercise: Aerial perspective urban landscape – painting

I made an excursion to the Brooklyn Bridge for this exercise, taking a sketchbook, drawing utensils and a camera with me. It was Sunday, Mother’s Day and beautiful weather, and the bridge was crowded… no way could I have bring myself to draw there amidst all the people. Nevertheless I enjoyed my trip and made several photos of the bridge itself and taking views onto Manhattan from the bridge and later from the promenade in Brooklyn Heights.

Reviewing my photos, I decided on two for exploratory sketching to find out which one might work as a watercolour painting. One had people in the foreground, whose clothes gave nice colour spots, but then I decided against this one because I thought that the figures would look frozen in a painting focused on an urban landscape. So I chose the second view which also seemed to work better because the lower half wasn’t blocked by the construction fence.

  

I began by making an outline drawing, as suggested by the course materials, then painted light colours first and increasingly darker tones. I painted several hours, almost an entire day, with breaks.

I’m not really happy with the result because I think the painting looks overworked and the colours are not bright and glowing. Somehow I think I did not do justice to the medium, rather treated my material as if it was Gouache paint. Assessing my work so far, I don’t think that there’s progress compared to the initial perspective paintings. It rather feels like I was repeating old errors – fiddling with detail, too many layers, unskillful brush strokes. I made a second painting after the first one, trying to work more energetic and generous, and improving the colour intensity. Both paintings are on 40 x 50 watercolour sheets.

  

Unfortunately I’m at a motivational low with the course right now. I don’t feel that the exercises help me to move forward. Maybe they are too complex for my current skill level. I feel overwhelmed by the complexity of a landscape and the task of painting from photo seems like a chore. I really wanted to paint outside but I cannot get over my embarrassment of drawing or painting in public settings. I’m really frustrated at the moment and can’t find pleasure in this part’s exercises. I really hope that the more experimental approach of the next course part will get me back on track with watercolours. Otherwise I might never touch the medium again after completing this course!

PS: Looking at them now, some days later, I’m much less negative about these paintings. In particular the first, more detailed one – I’m beginning to like it. I don’t know why I’m so often extremely dissatisfied immediately after finishing a painting, only to find “oh it’s not that bad actually” when I look at it again a few days later! I was tempted to delete the paragraphs with all the negative comments and my frustration, but then decided to leave it in – to remind me of how I actually felt!

Exercise: Aerial perspective in rural landscape

The weather forecast wasn’t good and rather than again postponing my work for the course, I decided to continue working from photos. I chose a photo made in 2005 when I travelled to Cuba. I saw many elements of aerial perspective: Stronger colours of plants and a stone fence in the foreground, a midground of subdued tones and less contrast, and finally a far background with a line of mountains in a blueish tone.

I began my work on this topic with a pencil drawing from the photo in my 23 x 30 cm sketchbook and was surprised by my own patience for the task. Compared to what I achieved in the drawing course, I think this is one of my better landscape drawings. Then I made two watercolour studies in the A4 watercolour sketchbook, one of the entire scene and the other of the plant detail. I made another pencil study of the further background because I found it very difficult to depict “non-detail” the tiny trees, bushes and fields. Finally I attacked a larger painting in 38 x 48 cm.

  

  

I’m quite satisfied with my work for this exercise and luckily got over the motivational crisis from the previous exercise. I think there are small improvements everywhere – the wash for the sky is more regular and the clouds have something cloudy about them. I tried out different brushes and how I could capture the somewhat bizarre shapes of the agave plants in the foreground.

I think the final painting captures distance quite nicely, in particular the silhouette of the mountains in the very far background helps to achieve this. The foreground has much more detail and stronger contrasts. I struggled with the middle distance because there were so many small elements in low contrast, and I didn’t know how to depict this. I tried several techniques, like making marks with a dry brush and a sponge, but it worked out less well than I had hoped. Nevertheless I feel the painting represents a step forward.

The colours in this painting are colder than that of the landscape in the photos, particularly in the medium distance. This is probably a result of my choice of brown tones – apparently I chose the cooler tones. But it may also effect from too much layering in the midground. The effect is still exaggerated in the digital image I took of the final painting. Maybe another layer of golden ochre would improve the overall effect, but I’d risk to create a muddy overall tone so I’d rather not try on this painting. Probably choosing warmer base tones would have been necessary.