Sketching Sunrise and sunset

Following on from the last post, I have also published a Squidoo lens on the subject of sunrise and sunsets. As before it is not a tutorial as such but does contain a wide ranging set of examples of these subjects which may help you to improve your own paintings. I have included watercolour

and pastel

and acrylic paintings

The images in this blog post are not repeated in the lens and I hope that you can find time to take a quick look at the lens. Or maybe you will even want to take a careful view of the styles and techniques I use.

My Experiences with Sketching Trees

I have just published a Squidoo Lens on Sketching Trees. It is not a tutorial but serves simply to be a vehicle for showing how I sketch trees and then how I incorporate them into landscape paintings. It is atually one of a series which I am putting together, also included are sunrise /sunset and water. There will be nore but so far not sure of the groupings.

Here are a couple of sketches / paintings which show trees, the second is more about other things but the trees are an important part of the composition.

The first is called, "The Dead Tree" and was inspired by a silver birch which had fallen but was propped at a crazy angle by other trees which were supporting it. Almost poignant, as if they were trying to help it. Gosh what crap! Anyway here is the sketch, it was in soft artists pastels.

The second is in watercolour, my other media and was intended to be a pencil sketch. After I had done it I really liked it and so went on to put colour washes down. You will probably not see where the pencil work is overpowering which is evident when viewing this close up. the trees here frame the lighter coloured building and make that part of the image an important focal point.

The last image is again a pastel, It is a "copy" of a painting I saw in an exhibition - I just wish I could remember the artists name. I was so taken with the whole image I had to try and work it out of my system. The tree here is more of a shrub but who's counting?

The double focal point is from the original but I have not obtained the same satisfactory balance and it seems stilted. However I still like it.

Why not browse over to my lens ( What is a lens? It is simply a single page web-site which focuses on a niche subject) and see what I have to say. The images are not repeated in the lens.