The art of painting wood, stones and bricks

by Tissa Hewavitarane

The texture of tree barks, wooden buildings or gates, rocks, stone or brick walls offer a marvellous opportunity to try out new techniques and to use the painting and drawing media in ways that you might never have thought of before.

"Tricks of the trade" such as spattering watercolour or applying it with sponges, scratching into oil paint or resisting methods are all perfectly valid painting techniques as long as the result successfully conveys the correct texture. We look at a variety of these unconventional descriptive approaches in which the control of form and details are of equal importance.

Wood

Wood offers one of the greatest ranges of textures of any natural material. In addition to the huge variety of wood seen out of doors, from tree barks to weathered and twisted driftwood, there is an almost infinite number of finishes seen indoors on furniture the result of sawing, axing, planing and polishing many different types of wood.

A painting of wood showing the correct textures

You may not want to emphasise the texture of the barks in a landscape. For example, in a woodland scene painted on the spot you may only need to suggest it in broad terms, but when a tree is a foreground feature attention to the texture of the bark can give a focus to the picture - decayed or rotting wood in the form of gate posts and fences also make an exciting foreground features in a landscape or can even be the main centre of interest.

Wood and metal left to rot and rust can be a rich source of subject matter, as this painting shows. This is a watercolour painting done by Michael Wan a brilliant artist to depict the correct texture on wood, metal, stone, brick and on barks.

Technique

The artist has achieved many of the textures by using dry brush technique. If you look closely at the rocks you can see how the solid lines peter out as the colour on the brush is gradually used up, producing a broken dry line that minics those in the wood.

The soft mottled textures of the lichen and the rust have also been painted with great skill. Here washes and dry brush combines in a careful building-up process, beginning with the lightest tones and finishing with darker ones. Many of these have been painted in a meticulous stippled technique. The soft, muted colours also help to convey the weather-beaten textures as well as giving an overall unity to the painting.

The artist has developed details and textures, paying close attention to the high lights. Notice the thin lines shown on the wood to depict the decayed structure and rust shown with dotted spots along the chain. The artist has followed these effects to bring out the correct texture and producing an almost living impression.

Stones

When you start painting stones it is always a good idea to practise by trying to master a simple technique. The critic and artist advise us to begin by going outside and picking up the first stone that you see in the garden or road.

He maintains that learning how to render the special texture and character of this stone, one could learn how to draw and paint anything. As he made clear, the principle of light reflected, light and shadow are as true for the minutest crack in a pebble as for a large ravine - scale makes no difference.

In many ways the textures that you find on smaller stones are very similar to those on a cliff face or in a quarry, and given the right light and angle can often serve as useful models for larger landscape features. Once you have thoroughly understood and mastered forms and textures you can begin to simplify and this is nearly always necessary when painting large, complex rock surface such as cliffs.

These is no easy recipe for this, but I usually find that trying to commit a scene to memory is helpful, as it compels you to concentrate on the main forms and textures, lines and placings, and then proceed to use the softer grades.

Although most watercolour techniques can be adapted to render the textures of wood and stone, but there are some methods that can effectively cut short the more traditional approach. Although many of the techniques are the result of a methodical approach you may experiment with less predictable techniques. The texture of the brick work for example was achieved by smudging the colour with the palm of the hand and lifting out colours with water.

Frottage

This is the most direct and immediate of methods for creating a wood or stone texture. The word means 'rubbing' and the methods is exactly the same as that used for making rubbing of stones and brass plaques in mainly churches. A sheet of paper is placed on top of the object and rubber over with a drawing material. The different features of the underlying texture show up as variations in 'drawing' providing a complete record of the surface qualities. This method is ideal for wood, brick and anything with a fairly flat surface.