Emma Price describes her process of recording small natural objects, which she sees the wild, by sketching and painting in watercolour.

Going for a walk in the woods is one of my favourite things to do, but I never feel the experience is complete until I’ve painted or drawn some of the things that I’ve seen.  

Sometimes a quick pen sketch is sufficient, other times I like to do a more detailed watercolour painting (see above).  

In this article, I’ll demonstrate how I do this, and offer some tips to help you create a painted record of your own.

Gathering reference material

As I walk, I often pick up small natural objects that I see, such as acorns, fallen leaves, feathers, shells or small stones.  

Lately, I’ve become interested in the beautiful lichens and mosses that are all around, but frequently overlooked. Winter and early spring is a good time to find them, as the winter storms bring down lichen-covered branches. 

1. Look down

You may need to change your focus; most of us look to the middle-distance at eye level as we walk, but to spot the smaller beauties we need to slow down, look at the ground around our feet, at rocks or rotting branches; gaze closely and try to make out individual forms within a mass of brown and green.  

Once you really start to look in this way it can get addictive and you will notice things that you were never previously aware of.

2. Protect the environment

I don’t want to damage the habitat, so I never pick wildflowers or fungi; if I want to record these, I’ll do a quick sketch and take some pictures (most phone cameras are fine, or use a macro setting on a digital camera).  

The sketch is important because cameras always introduce some distortion, either in colour or form, so I like to record my own impressions and just use the photos as a guide.  

However, things like fallen lichen, leaves or pinecones keep well so I’ll take a few home to draw at leisure.  

3. Protect your specimens

A small resealable freezer bag keeps them fresh until I get home; lichens and moss keep well in a cool shady place, with a spritz of rainwater twice a day.  

Leaves are pressed between paper and weighed down overnight. I always try to take them back where they came from once I’ve finished the painting.

Seeing in miniature

Back home, I have a good look at my finds; feeling the texture, noticing any scent, and sketching them to familiarise myself with their complex forms and distinguishing features.  

A hand lens is a great - and fairly cheap - investment, opening up a whole new world of miniature detail that can be almost overwhelming.

Indentifying your finds

The process of identification is something I really enjoy, and I’ve learnt a lot. Published field guides are available, and online apps, but I’ve found that showing my finds to experts via social media or the iSpot website is the best way to get an accurate identification and also to connect with people that I’d never otherwise meet. But it’s really up to you whether you want to do that or not.

Composition

The next stage is to make an attractive composition; this is good fun as I move the objects around on a sheet of paper to see what looks best. I like to add the names, so have to remember to leave room for writing.

Materials

Paper:

The paper I use is Saunders Waterford Hot-pressed 300 gsm, stretched onto a thick MDF board; the smooth surface is good for fine details but will also handle wet-in-wet. I usually paint without any prior drawing, but will add pencil lines as a guide for more complex subjects.

Brushes:

I use Chinese brushes for these paintings, as they hold a lot of pigment while retaining a fine point, though I would stress that this is not proper Chinese brush painting, which is a completely different discipline. I paint basically in a traditional European watercolour painting style, working light to dark, building up the layers with transparent glazes to create the required depth of colour.

I keep an old synthetic brush for mixing the colours, so I don’t damage the points of the Chinese brushes.

An example

Painting the larch branch

The image above shows (clockwise from top left)  how I created part of a painting of finds from the Great Wood near Keswick in the Lake District (see finished painting below).

Mosses and lichens thrive in the soft, clean air and abundant rainfall. I particularly loved the fallen branch of larch, complete with rose-like cones, the pinkish-brown wood contrasting with the vivid blue-green lichens.

This was an opportunity to use some more unusual colours to get the right shades; pthalo turquoise, with touches of light red or yellow ochre, worked well for the lichen whilst quinacridone magenta, Winsor blue (green shade) and light red were used for the larch.  

Wetting the paper first, then working wet-in-wet with dabs of rich colour, mixed from the tube, created beautiful soft washes for the fluffy lichen. Once dried, using thicker colour with a damp (not wet!) brush created fine details, "drawing" with the tip of the brush.  

Harsh lines were softened by going over with a clean damp brush.

Top tip

Depth is created by keeping the rearmost stems less detailed than the foreground. A mix of French Ultramarine and light red is useful for grey shadows.

A meditavive process

A Walk Through the Great Wood, Keswick

As I paint, I find my observation deepens and improves, making it easier to see the fine details. It can be a very meditative process!  

Whilst I certainly wouldn’t claim these are botanically accurate illustrations, that doesn’t really matter - I’m trying to capture a memory, not illustrating a field guide.

Working this way can be quite intense, so it’s important to remember to stop regularly and flex my wrist and fingers to loosen them, and look at something else for a while.

To finish, I rub out any pencil marks, brushing off the rubbings with a feather to avoid damaging the paper. Shadows are added by dropping the grey ultramarine/light red mix onto wetted paper.

Finally, if I’ve managed to identify what I’ve found, I add on the names.

Hopefully by now I’ve produced something that sums up the sense of the place I was in and, whenever I look at it, will bring back the feeling of being there - even recalling the scent of the woodland floor.

READ EMMA'S TOP TIPS FOR SKETCHING BIRDS

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