This
scene was sketched while on holiday in Suffolk (UK), sitting on the
village green overlooking these wonderful wonky houses and the
general store with its very low lintel (hence its name “Duck or
Grouse Village Store”). The sun was shining, we had just finished the ice creams we had treated ourselves to at the village shop - a perfect opportunity for a quick pen and wash sketch before exploring the rest of the village.
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| Pen and wash sketch - approx 7” x 4” |
A couple of years later, an art club challenge to paint a shop front, had me choosing this subject from my travel journals. I decided to crop out the far left of the
pink building and, with reference to my sketch and a photo, I
adjusted the Village Store for a head-on view, but left the cottages
as they were. I enlarged and combined both sections on the computer
for my final layout (10” x 6”).
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| Layout sketch - 10” x 6” |
I have used this Indian ink and
gouache resist technique on a number of occasions over the past few
years and find it particularly suitable for depicting old buildings.
So that was my choice of medium for this subject.
The
layout was traced onto stretched watercolour paper and a variegated
base watercolour wash laid down and allowed to dry – this wash
enabled me to see more clearly where I was applying the white gouache
which followed.. The gouache was carefully painted over this base,
leaving proposed dark areas and outlines untouched for the subsequent
Indian ink to sink into the paper. For areas I wanted to keep very
light I made sure I applied a couple of layers of gouache; thinner
applications will result in shaded or grey areas in the final piece.
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| Starting to apply white gouache over watercolour base (see tiles on lefthand roof) |
The
gouache needed to be thoroughly dry before using a wide flat brush to
wash Indian ink quickly and with a light touch over the whole image
– too much scrubbing and overlapping of brush strokes at this stage
would disturb the gouache layer too soon. After another period of
drying, it was time to put the painting under the tap, still taped
to its backing board - with the aid of a stiff brush the gouache
dissolved, removing most of the ink over it, but leaving the areas
untouched by the gouache clearly defined.
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| Under the tap and washing off the ink |
Another
patient wait for the work to dry and assess the outcome. After this
drastic process most of the watercolour base had also been washed off
so more saturated watercolour washes were added. Normally I would
consider the painting finished now, but on this occasion I obviously
hadn’t applied the gouache thickly enough in places and this left
me with some areas which I considered were far too dark. Rather than
abandon the painting after all that effort I opted to try and make
the necessary adjustments with some white acrylic and pastel.
Fortunately, my alterations blended in well.
It
is a rather convoluted process and the reveal after washing off the
ink is often a surprise (not always welcome), but I quite like the
“woodcut” appearance of the final painting.
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| Final image "Duck or Grouse Village Store" – 10” x 6” - Mixed Media |
