Burnside Cottage, Fionnphort, Isle Of Mull

I’m still getting used to the NeolucidaXL. As the next step in my journey towards mastering its ways, I used it today to help me draw a simple landscape of a building. This is a cottage in the tiny village of Fionnphort on the Isle of Mull. And because one bit if experimentation didn’t feel like enough today, I went for line and wash style with fineliners and watercolour and gave the honey based watercolours another outing.

I should point out that this doesn’t count as a dash and splash painting for two reasons

• the drawing was made from a photo, not en plein air
• I picked out the colours I wanted to use, rather than letting the iPad choose them for me
• and, actually, there’s a third reason. My watercolours today weren’t loose enough for a dash and splash. I’ve been too accurate at “colouring in the shapes”

Anyway, the process was quite simple. A pencil outline song the NeoLucida XL, the lines inked using fineliners of various different thicknesses, the watercolour applied from the back to the front, some white gouache on various posts and a spattering of color to finish. And that was me done.

I’m not a fan of this one. What don’t I like? Well:

• As I said earlier, I’ve been quite accurate at filling in shapes. I think this would have looked better looser.
• I’m not convinced line and wash works well with distant hills. They don’t look right outlined and wouldn’t have looked right without outlines.
• The roof and the darker foreground area have ended up quite muddy where I’ve mixed in too much colour. Most of my mixing was done on the paper and struggled because the paint was tending to sit on top of the (smooth) hot pressed paper that I was using without soaking in quickly enough for my tastes.
• I should really have left some big white areas in this painting
• And without those big white areas, the spattering was probably unnecessary.
• And, finally, there’s no excuse for those huge accidental spatters

Still, I’ll never get better if I don’t keep experimenting. Tomorrow’s another day. I’m thinking of venturing out on a painting mission although I’m not sure yet whether I’ll be taking watercolours or soft pastels if I do.

And a couple of days later I see this one is somehow getting loads of likes, so I’m putting it up for sale.