What Shall I Paint in April?

Our local farmer, George, has to wait longer for his lambs than most sheep farmers. The North Pennines are high country with a late spring often preceded by snow storms in late March and that hastens the snowfall, known as lambing storms. Consequently the ewes are brought in to lamb just before the beginning of April.

I am allowed to visit and draw. What a busy, peaceful place it is! The ewes are birthing all around, requiring constant attention in case of problems, the lambs need checking and ringing, and the mothers need their feed. It is also peaceful, with a great sense of relief and pleasure in the new life. Some ewes just cannot believe their new status and seem bewildered. Others are fiercely protective if I come too close and stamp their feet at me, while the rest settle serenely beside their new lambs.

Occasionally a lamb dies or is stillborn.

Being able to study detail so close would not be possible when the little animal was alive; it is always valuable and a privilege to be able to draw it.

Focus on animals

Drawing animals can seem daunting but, as I wrote last month, the forms can be broken down to simplify them.

The most important thing to remember when drawing animals is close and frequent observation.

One of my favourite painters and a member of The Glasgow Boys, Joseph Crawhall (1861-1913), would watch animals for hours at a time then go home and paint them. This seems an almost superhuman thing to be able to do, but Crawhall was developing his visual memory, and that is something we all can try to do.

Observation doesn’t have to be as difficult; it’s about watching and analysing. What intrigues you about the shape, position or attitude of the animals in question? How might you simplify the shapes you see. It really does help the brain to relax if you don’t name what you are drawing. It is a matter of saying to yourself: What is that shape I see when the ‘thing’ moves?

Painting animals, of course, is also about fur, hair and whiskers on top of a form. Here again, if you have access to or own a cat or dog, study the way the fur grows, the way it lays back over the nose, the face and into the body. Look for crowns, where the hair changes direction, just as our hair does on our own heads. Look at the depth of the coat. Particularly with a thick coat of a sheep, notice where the creases are by the major turning points: the neck and head, the shoulders and belly, and the belly and hindquarters. These are the major points of shadow.

Look closely and you will realise that sheep are not white. Unless they are freshly shampooed, which isn’t often, or shorn, they range from dirty cream to raw umber (dirty brown). This is important, particularly if you are painting sheep in a green field. In a photograph, the sheep will appear white when the camera bleaches the light; however if the sheep is left white or in watercolour, as empty white paper, it will appear too light by contrast to the objects around it.

Sheep, watercolour, (18x23cm).

Sheep fleece is a dirty yellowish colour. This was achieved with yellow ochre, raw umber and cobalt blue, with a touch of red for the shadows.

Work on tinted paper

Some trees are not fully out until near the end of April. Sitting in the warmth of a conservatory I made a watercolour on pale buff tinted pastel paper.

Whenever I paint a sky, the colours are worked into all the colour mixes on the rest of the painting, in this case cobalt blue. Cobalt mixed with lemon yellow creates spring greens and I used it for the field colours and, with a little white added, for the spring leaf appearing on the still bare trees. The early watercolourists, Turner included, worked on tinted paper, especially creams, buffs and greys. Thomas Girtin introduced Turner to painting on white paper.

If you are new to painting or nervous about colour, please do try working on tinted paper. Pastel paper comes in a good variety of lighter tints and is ideal.

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However the paper will need stretching by soaking for a few minutes in water then laying onto a wooden or plywood board, or even a hardboard surface.

Use water gummed paper tape to fix it, leave flat to dry then paint on when dry. Remove the painting by slitting next to the tape with a craft knife to remove from the board.

Spring Budding, Greatham, watercolour on a buff tinted ground (pastel paper), (21x28.5cm).

Cobalt blue was used in the sky and throughout the painting in mixes to give the painting cohesion.

TRY THIS!

Paint still-life studies on coloured paper. Choose a medium to dark paper and, if using smooth pastel paper, don’t forget to stretch it first. Place your subject in good light to produce both light and shadows; a reading lamp placed to the side works well. Paint from dark to light; the highlights need to be the thickest part of the painting.