a beautiful day for drawing

Look at this lovely monoprint/pastel drawing made by Lindsey at the art workshop day yesterday at Birtley estate! As the group was the same as on the last art day, everyone already had ideas for what they'd like to do.

This picture uses the technique of monoprinting a textured background (the blue colour), and then adding the landscape drawing in pastel. The effect of the cloud is particularly successful.



































There is plenty to draw at Birtley, beautiful lakes with canada geese, and lovely wild flowers.

























It was a perfect sunny summer day, and everyone enjoyed sitting under the trees to draw. (Is it a coincidence that Marcus's picture matches his shirt?)





















































We practised looking at what to leave out to simplify a picture, and what kind of lines to use to depict different textures. For instance, the tree in the background of the sketch below was big and dark and in the shade, so could be drawn with one thick stroke of the side of the chalk, and the silver birch in front is delicate and soft. You can make a lot of different kinds of marks with pastel, and an infinite number of colours by mixing them on the page.

























Beautiful delicate 'ghost trees' by Lindsey (below). I love the surprising snowy effect the printed background has given.




























Everyone produced exciting drawings, and I think they all enjoyed themselves as much as I did!

I hope to be at the Surrey Hills Wood Fair, demonstrating monoprinting on Sunday 2nd October:

http://www.surreyhills.org/events/the-surrey-hills-wood-fair/

It was a great day last year, with lots to see and do. Maybe I'll see you there?