I wasn’t very good at painting and not that committed to improving. I would have…
The Old Forge, Inverie
This, or at least the building on the far left, is The Old Forge, a pub in the village of Inverie on the Knoydart Peninsula. It was in the news today because it’s just reopened, making it Britain’s remotest mainland pub, inaccessible by road and just an 18 mile walk or 7 mile boat trip from the car. And a big row of white buildings in front of a huge hill always makes for a good painting. I used the tinted charcoals today but I’ll be back with watercolours soon, maybe as soon as tomorrow.
I used mainly the charcoal pencils, resorting to the XL blocks only in the sky and in the sea in the bottom right. I used white paper as I wanted the buildings to be white and to contrast sharply against the trees behind them. For once I didn’t blend everything in, instead leaving sharp(ish) edges for rooves and windows and some treetrunk–Like textures in the bottom half of the trees along the top of the hill. The other technique that’s worth mentioning is that I applied colour in the sky in diagonal stripes from top right to bottom left and smoothed it in the same way. And in cleaning up, I used a big brush to wipe off crumbs in the same direction. The effect of all this is faintly visible in the sky, giving the impression of rain falling. There’s also some faint evidence there of an unsuccessful attempt at creating some sunbeams in the same direction with an eraser.
I guess this is OK and I’m putting it up for sale. I’m also starting to wonder, though, whether I’m any good at charcoal landscapes and whether I might be better off trying charcoal figures and portraits. But we’ll see.
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