Quick landscape sketches

by Tissa Hewavitarane

Landscapes are held in high esteem by enthusiasts, because of their spontaneity, freedom and the possibility to adopt the subject to their own tastes.

The quick sketches are one of the best exercises that a water colourist can develop. Continuously practising it, one learns rapidly and intuitively the techniques of water colour. Doing a sketch requires a great effort by the painter because speed and ability to synthesise come into play. Details are left aside to give priority to shadows and to light areas. A sketch can be done in any place.

What is necessary is paper, a brush and some water colour paints and water to mix the colours. The quality of the paper plays an important role. A low quality paper would be dyed by the colour and would never allow the complete absorption of other colours.

The first technique a beginner needs to know to get started in watercolour is the wash technique. Wash allows the artist to paint different tones of the same colour, according to the amount of water that is added to the paint on the palette. Despite the fact that wash is executed with watercolour, it is really a drawing technique.

No matter whether you are experienced at drawing or not you will see how closely wash is linked to drawing. In this exercise the brush is used to apply lines in the same way one forms lines with the pencil. Moreover, the gradation technique is similar to stamping or shading progressing from dark to light using a single colour.

In both cases the artist can achieve a great number of tones. Sometimes the object depicted requires a better finish than that obtained by values and tones. To obtain this finish it is necessary to combine the techniques studied up to now. First of all the work is done on the values and white reserves and later the texture is added to the dry background.

Observe the painting, the tones of the background are strengthened. Some areas have dried completely and others kept half wet. The trees to the left are finished by applying dark green among the lighter greens. The painting here is a quick demonstration of one of the meadows.