Grassington, Yorkshire

John Kay explains how he uses sketches to plan and simplify a watercolour painting of a Yorkshire village scene.

The concept of “process” best sums up my approach to a painting.

My best work is usually the result of a series of steps which allow me to make decisions at each stage.

I have always adhered to the practice of using sketches in the preparation for painting as shown by Ruskin, Turner, Gainsborough and many other practising artists.

My photographs have also proved the starting point for many of my paintings. I take a great deal of trouble to make sure that the photographs that I select have been taken by me and are as well composed as possible. My older self, indulgently relies on photographs but I still take a lot of care over their selection.

The photograph

Some time ago in the 90s I took a photograph of a small pretty village in Wharfedale, Yorkshire called Grassington, see below.

The sketches

The first pencil sketch, above, was done on the spot at the same time as I took the photo. It had rather heavy and unvarying dark tones across the centre.

I drew the second pencil sketch because I was dissatisfied with the first one which was close to the original photograph and tended to lead the attention too far to the left.

In the second sketch I took the main subject centre further to the right and closer to the Golden Mean proportion (or a third of the width).

The sides of the road were adjusted to emphasise the perspective. I then established a lighter tone in places to link some shapes in a progression across the picture.

Producing a line sketch from a photo

I then produced a simple line sketch which I photographed and scanned into a photo managing program (Affinity Photo).

I then saved the result to a picture file and, using a desktop publishing program, (Serif, PagePlus), I print off four smaller copies on thick paper cut to A4 size, so it will go through my printer, to use for tonal sketches.

Adding the tones

I first applied the mid tones.

Darker tones were then added to give a steppingstone effect across the picture, taking care toensure the spaces between them vary, before the final colours were applied.

The final watercolour

The older I get the more useful I find this system to be.

I experiment with these sketches to work out how I want to see the possible tonal stress of the final painting.

I may do a trial colour sketch or two to select the colours I might finally use. The main purpose is to immerse myself into the composition and the particular set of shapes I develop from the study.

There is nothing final or irrevocable about my preparative work I may well deviate from all of the sketches in the final painting. Even the painting may be added to.

I may use a past painting that I was particularly happy with as a starting point for a new painting. It could be several years since I first painted it. A good composition is worth repeating.

If anything, my later work is much more meticulous, some may say that I have lost some of the spontaneity of my previous paintings and I would be inclined to agree with them.

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