Early Spring, Throop Road - step-by-step process of a watercolour by Bob Biggart

Image 1

First stage

I’m very blessed to be living on the edge of Bournemouth, just inside Dorset. Before my wife developed Parkinson’s disease we walked all over the beauty spots within an hour or so’s drive in the car. Even then, if we wanted to have a proper walk, I would only hurriedly put something down in my sketch book and take a photo to back up the details. Nowadays, I tend to take photos and work from them at home, but on rare occasions I will still have an hour or so to gather information for a painting. This is the story of one of those events.

Five minutes in the car takes me to Throop Mill, a favourite subject for local artists, with a place to park the car. On this occasion, I walked down Throop Road with my sketchbook and camera, stopping to do the above quick drawings (see image 1, above). I also took a photo of the view seen in the smallest sketch above (see image 2, below).

Image 2

Second Stage

In the following days, I wanted to paint a reasonable sized watercolour based on the information gathered, but I wasn’t sure of the general layout and colour scheme to use, so next was a fairly quick small watercolour to try out what I had in mind. It’s always a bit difficult for me to quote an accurate time scale, as I regularly have to leave a painting and come back to it later. I also wanted to give Langton 140lb Hot Pressed paper a try, so it was a case of “killing two birds with one stone” (see image 3, below).

Image 3 - Watercolour sketch ( approx 8”x 10”)

Having completed the second stage, and finding I was ok with the composition etc, it was time to go on. However it was a while later that I commenced the third stage. I paint for enjoyment, with no deadlines to make, so there’s no pressure to have to get it done.

Third stage

The first decision was what paper to use. As I’m a great fan of Richard Thorn’s paintings, I earlier had decided to buy a pad of heavyweight Khadi watercolour paper, as it is cost effective, and Richard does some fantastic work with it. The Jumbo Wiro Sketchbook has 15 pages of 640gsm white handmade paper (approx 20” x 14”). It is made in India, and each sheet is slightly different, as you’d expect with handmade paper. If you’re used to pristine sheets of watercolour paper made in the EU, you might think that the paper isn’t up to normal expectations - at least that’s what I thought initially. But the cost difference is not inconsiderable, and once it is stretched (using Joe Francis Dowden’s method with staples) it looks much more like the real deal. It doesn't have to be stretched but I found that it helped me. You may also find a few flaws on some of the sheets that can be worked round by choosing a sheet for a smaller painting and avoiding the flaw. I can honestly say that I have a love-hate relationship with this paper, as it also has great qualities, which we’ll come to later.

So, paper cut off wire bound pad, and stretched, I viewed image 2 on my computer and overlaid it with a grid. I then lightly drew a larger grid on the paper to match the number of squares on the image on the computer. This enabled me to be pretty accurate with the basics when drawing the view on the watercolour paper on a larger scale. However if I think that an item needs moving around a bit, or leaving out, I’ll do it. This resulted in the drawing in image 4 (see below).

Image 4 - Drawing on Khadi 640gsm Rough paper

I then applied grey Pebeo masking fluid to the parts of the painting I wanted to keep white with both a small man-made brush, and a ruling pen - the kind of thing you get in a geometry set, and hardly ever use until you later take up watercolour painting!

TOP TIP

A great tip when using brushes (don’t use your favourite sables!) and masking fluid is to get a bar of soap (I use Simple Soap as it has very few added extras in it), wet the top and work it with your fingers to get a nice bit of wet soapy fluid on it. Then soak your brush in it. Bring it to a point with your soapy fingers, and use it just like that. If you stick to that, washing off the fluid (use a separate jar to the normal water container you use for painting) and re-soaping/pointing the brush periodically, you should be fine, and the brush should last a good while.

The masking can be seen in image 5 (below) as dark grey parts.

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Fourth stage

The watercolours used throughout the painting were W&N and Daler Rowney:

  • Ultramarine
  • Cobalt Blue
  • Cerulean Blue
  • Permanent Rose
  • Cobalt Violet
  • Light Red
  • Cadmium Yellow Pale (Daler Rowney)
  • Yellow Ochre (Daler Rowney)
  • Vivid Green (Daler Rowney)
  • Viridian
  • Hookers Green
  • Burnt Umber
  • Burnt Sienna

In addition, permanent white gouache was used for the odd highlights that were missed when doing the masking, often mixed with an appropriate colour to achieve the required hue and tone.

Brushes used were varied. I’ll often get out a couple of size 10 sables and a couple of size 6 sables, plus a D99 series rigger, and then find myself using artificial fibre brushes as well, just because they’re in a jam jar close to hand! I’ll also use a squirrel mop sometimes, especially for making my washes up as they hold such a large amount of water.

The first loose wash was mainly dilute cerulean blue, cobalt blue, ultramarine, cobalt violet, permanent rose, vivid green, cadmium yellow, yellow ochre and burnt sienna (see image 5, below).

TOP TIP

When mixing a wash always make sure you have enough of each made up in the palette, plus a couple of extra china dishes, so you never have to pause in the painting process to mix up more (I’ve run out many times in the past - I never seem to learn!).

Any pauses in watercolour painting may mean parts of the wash dry out leading to the nightmare of runs and cauliflowers where you don’t want them, failed attempts at fixing them, and worst case scenario a bin job!

Image 5 - First loose wash plus masking fluid

The painting was then developed in my normal way, working from the looser background trees and hedges, to the middle distance of hedges, cottage and twin trees, up to the foreground of main tree, field, beech hedge plus fence. Finally the right hand hedge, plus shadows were painted, masking fluid removed and gouache highlights added. (see Image 6, below).

Image 6 - Painting complete?

More often than not, I then leave the painting for a day or two to look carefully with a (hopefully) dispassionate eye, to see if anything could be improved. In this case, I thought it looked ok initially, but I had omitted the wall under the hedge to the left of the cottage which any locals would notice. I also thought the darks could do with beefing up and the whole thing needed a bit more interest.

Image 7 - Early Spring Throop Road, watercolour, (11” x 15”)

The added interest in the painting came from extra work to the left of the white cottage. You can turn left at the cottage into Holdenhurst Village Road, or right, carries on with Throop Road. You can just make out in the photo, that there is a row of cottages down Holdenhurst Villiage Road, that can better be seen end on from a different viewpoint. There’s a group of pines just past them, and I wanted to put them into the painting as well.

This is where Khadi paper comes into its own, as it is very easy to lift non-staining colours back to almost the original white. This is done by painting the area with water, lightly rubbing with a square ended Series 204 ProArte acrylic brush (stiffer than sable, softer than hog bristle) and blotting with a tissue . Repeating this process until the paper almost white again. Once dry, the cottages and pines were painted in. The middle distance hedge to the left of the main cottage was darkened, and the brick wall in shadow painted underneath it. The highlight at the top of the wall was lifted out and left as white, even though it wasn’t really visible, but this is a painting not a copy of a photo. It took me years before I realised that this type of extra detail can be included in a painting if it helps with the overall composition and effect… maybe I’m a bit slow with absorbing such things, but at least I know now!

Other than that, most of the shadow areas in the painting were beefed up, and an extra cast shadow in the field was included. I think it was worth waiting a day or so, and going back to include the extras … I felt better about it anyway, I’ll leave it up to you to think if I should have stopped at the last but one stage (image 6). Hope you found some of this helpful.

Recommendations

I have to say, that there are other watercolour papers out there with great lifting properties. Some that are difficult in this area have other areas where they excel. Ian Sidaway did a thorough review of watercolour papers in The Artist magazine issues Jan - March and July 2017 which are very much worth a read. Click here for back issues of The Artist.

If you really want to see how a master painter of English lanes approaches such a subject, I thoroughly recommend Richard Thorn’s book, Down an English Lane, still available from Richard’s website:- richardthornart.co.uk. It was given to me by my wife a year ago, and is still a great favourite. It’s not a “how to” book, but a collection of his paintings on the subject.

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