Sketching for a painting
For some of the paintings that I do I will use sketching to work out what I am going to paint - the shapes, colours, composition, style, techniques and so forth.
These sketches can really ‘take the pressure off’! - I’m not trying to complete a finished painting, I’m just exploring ideas that I can use to start one.
I find this gives me a lot more freedom to play around and experiment, try out ideas, develop something that catches my eye, do things that look awful - but might just give a glimpse of something that works well. These sketches help me to develop some ‘guidelines’ that I will go on to use when I am trying to do a more finished piece. It gives me more confidence and a better idea about what I am going to do.
Crucially, the sketching process also helps me to take that sense of freedom and experimentation onto the process of working towards a more, potentially finished painting. I am very conscious as a painter of the tension between wanting to do something that is accomplished and ‘good enough’, and the necessity to put these thoughts aside so that I can work more freely and with an instinctual energy - which always gets better results!
Swiss Cheese plants
When I was in art college, many years ago, I did several paintings of the Swiss Cheese plant. I found that there was something about the shape and form of this plant that reminded me of various human emotions. A leaf could be springing up as if it was having a great day! or it could be hanging down in some state of sadness. I focused in on this during my college days and tried to capture and exaggerate this quality that the plant prompted for me.
I recently decided to have a go at painting this plant again. I have memories of painting this on a much larger scale - oil paint on large canvases, with a very free approach to my painting technique (the carefree nature of my youth!) So, to start me off on this journey, I have turned to the carefree nature of sketching!
Here are a few examples of this work in progress. I don’t feel that I’m ready to start any finished works yet - I still have more ‘guidelines’ that I would like to develop - shapes, composition, colours, what media I am going to use, having the confidence to paint freely and with expression - and hence the use of sketching for this process.
I started by playing around with shapes and colours - some of the shapes are more representative of the leaves, and others I’ve gone a bit more abstract with. I tried to start putting some ‘energy’ into the work.
I focused more on the technique that I was using for this leaf - using oil pastel and a pipette with acrylic ink to try to create the form, and watercolours to give a mood to it.
I carried on playing around with these sketches - trying different shapes. I also thought I would see how things work with just watercolour (image 3) and with watercolour and oil pastel (image 4).
In this sketch I started to think more about composition. I’m not happy with this yet and I still have a lot of work to do - however, I do like some of the shapes in this sketch, particularly the more abstracted ones, and that leaf that I’ve been playing around with.
I also need to do more work on the colours that I will be using.
More sketching required!
Whilst I have only done these few sketches on an essentially new subject, I can see some progress being made. There are a few things there that I really like and I’ll continue to develop these themes. I’ve still got some way to go until I think I will be able to produce a painting that I am happy with - but I’ll continue to enjoy the journey and see where it takes me.
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