'I use ultramarine most, especially in mixes with burnt umber, to achieve warm and cool shades of a very beautiful grey,' says Pamela Kay. 'I also always have a tube of Designer’s gouache in permanent white if I want the best opacity somewhere'.

Keeping a holiday sketchbook

'I had been travelling with a sketchbook as my constant companion. As I sailed down the west coast of Africa, the final leg of my journey to Cape Town, there were many unusual and strange sights to record within its pages. We had been at sea for two weeks and were approaching a chain of volcanic islands near the equator.

'The air was more humid and the landscape lusher. The islands of Cape Verde were quiet and understated, unspoiled by tourists, and were very different from anything I had experienced previously.

'I sketched rapidly from the little 12-seater people carrier as we passed extraordinary rock formations that offered dramatically sharp peaks and sudden valleys.

'Taken to the town of Assomada in the interior, we visited a market. Then, for me, an extraordinary sight presented itself: a woman walked past me with a furled umbrella balanced on her head. Amazing! I had to draw it.

'Curiously, that one incident made my trip absolutely memorable.

'Travelling by sea, there was always something to notice and paint: skies, sunrises, sunsets, and islands with mountains. The view from the sea gave me an entirely new perspective and the approach to the island of Principe was an example of beautiful, entirely tonal recession (Tonal Recession Study - below). Part of the same volcanic chain in the Gulf of Guinea, the geology was extraordinary. ‘If you painted that,’ said the passenger beside me, ‘no one would believe you.’ The perfect reason for me to have a go, I decided'.

Tonal Recession Study, watercolour on Saunders Waterford 140lb NOT sketchbook paper, (18x25.5cm)

This tonal sketch shows the layers of volcanic rock formations of Principe, an island in the Gulf of Guinea.

Inspiration from Turner

We now had a long period at sea before we reached the next landfall so I decided to watch the sky and make a practice of sketching and painting it as much as I could. It is something I am rarely able to do so this was a very good reason to begin again.

Nobody, but absolutely nobody, understands how to paint skies like Turner. In any medium, anywhere, in any weather, Turner knew skies. Living from time to time in Margate, he saw the sun rise and set over a sea that had a vast unencumbered horizon. Anyone who lives by the sea, as I do, will know the delights of cloud formations, curtains of rain on a distant horizon, subtle variations of colour in the sea and the unique sunrise and sunsets that are a daily occurrence.

Painting a sky is like nailing jellyfish to a wall. It can’t be done so a compromise has to be found. It is an extraordinarily subtle subject and not at all easy. The paintings felt amorphous and seemed to escape from my grasp every time; all the more reason to grapple with the subject and put down a statement of some kind. The sketches you see on these pages are not to be thought of as finished work, but rather as observations, a way of talking to myself through the medium of paint and sharpening the eye.

Watching and painting constantly changing skies has endless variations, but is even more clearly seen from a ship. An occasional island passing by gives a certain perspective and depth, but the whole experience is about attempting to capture, at speed, the changing nature of the scene, but then working rapidly, drawing or painting a moving target was the theme of the entire journey.

It is always a useful discipline to crank up the pace. You have to make instant decisions and stick with them. It’s not easy and you can ruin good paper in the process, but it is the only way. As a still-life painter, I was used to nothing moving for weeks on end. This was a welcome exercise in speed and change.

How to paint light

The whole event of the initial slow appearance of the sun over the horizon to the complete reveal may last no more than 20 minutes, if you are lucky.

Clouds on the horizon will enhance the effect, but the most interesting part is the initial 20 minutes. The sky is suffused with a pale lemon glow a long time before the sun actually appears. This can be seen clearly in many of the watercolours Turner made of Venice in his sketchbooks.

The colours become more intense and warmer in the central spot, turning first golden then red. Surrounding clouds can also veil the intense scarlet ball that is slowly appearing.

Sunrise I, watercolour on Saunders Waterford 140lb NOT sketchbook paper, (18x25.5cm)

This was my first attempt to paint a sunrise. I was trying to achieve the effect of the bright light of the sun by darkening the colours around it. It ended up looking overworked.

Sunrise I (above) shows my initial attempt at painting a sunrise from the ship. The colours were mother-of-pearl and pale, but the sun was brighter and stronger than anything else. Again, Turner had the answer and knew that subtlety of tone was the key.

To make something appear to have light, you need to paint darker tones around it to give contrast. Paint these tones too dark and the subtlety is destroyed and, with it, the effect. It is a delicate business. But get it right and it works amazingly well. By half closing your eyes and squinting, detail is reduced and tones clarified.

Looking in this way at the rising sun, a ball of intense light and colour, the surrounding clouds and sea seem to go down very slightly in tone. If you overdo this, it will resemble much more the effects of a sunset. I put down splashes of the colours that I saw, noted the colour changes and how intense they were nearer the sun, but faded the further away they were. The sea had a path of light from the horizon that advanced towards me, surrounded by reflections of the colours in the sky. It became a mess the more I tried to work into it and I realised that I was trying to make too many changes in an attempt to constantly match the shifting scene in front of me.

The next morning, off the coast of Guinea and 110 miles out at sea, I awoke early to watch another sun rise and found the ship covered in thousands of butterflies. You’ll find extraordinary things happen at sea. That morning I witnessed another spectacular sunrise and I chose a piece of buff-coloured handmade paper on which to work (Sunrise II, below). Holding all the subtle colour changes together might be simplified, I thought, if I used a coloured ground.

There was a band of cloud just above the horizon through which the sun was rising and I decided to concentrate on this early formation and once it was laid in, work more from my memory of the scene. As a technique for painting the fleeting moment, this worked much better and I used gouache for the sun and the light on the water. I was getting nearer to the effect I wanted.

Sunrise II, watercolour on buff-coloured handmade paper, (21.5x28cm)

Using a coloured ground on handmade paper worked better.

Transient effects

By now, I was watching the sky at every opportunity, but the sun wasn’t to be seen every morning. This made everything more interesting, because the hidden effects of the sun’s presence were just as amazing. A low line of dark blue grey cloud base on the horizon, obscuring the sun, meant the clouds above at a higher altitude caught the apricot glow. The colours in the sky were wonderful variations from deep grey blue to umber and peach.

The freedom that you experience when painting the nebulous forms of clouds in one way simplifies the problems of drawing. There is no concrete drawing to be done, except a straight line for the horizon, but the changing scene complicates the business of tone and colour. However, by using a really delicious Rough surfaced piece of watercolour paper, the best you can afford, it is possible to add a quality to the washes of colour that will enhance the final statement (Sunrise III, below).

Sunrise III, watercolour on handmade Rough paper, (18x25.5cm)

The paper’s surface livened up the colour and texture of the washes.

Experience and understanding

These paintings were made very much in the same spirit as the sketchbook drawings I made throughout the journey, some of which you saw last month, and were voyages of discovery for me. The more I painted and drew the things that were new and strange to me, the more I saw to paint and draw. It is a wonderful process of opening the eyes. By attempting to paint something new and different, it made me appreciate the immense talent of those who can do it well from personal knowledge and experience.

It is only by looking and painting or drawing a great deal, you can really know anything properly.

This does not mean painting from photographs is second hand and of little value. A camera simply copies the scene and records it, which is fine if you are a birdwatcher. Cameras, however, cannot interpret a scene; interpretation is left to us as artists. What is of the greatest value is your personal response to your subject matter, and your personal selection, whether conscious or unconscious of an experience that you choose to record.

Rain at Sea I, watercolour on Saunders Waterford 140lb NOT sketchbook paper, (18x25.5cm)

Here I sketched rain at sea during a watery, almost monochromatic sunrise.

Rain at Sea II, watercolour on Saunders Waterford 140lb NOT sketchbook paper, (18x25.5cm)

Another attempt was made of the same sunrise just a few minutes later.

Pamela Kay

Join Pamela and other Leisure Painter readers painting gardens and chateaux in France this June. For details, visit www.spencerscotttravel.com. Find out more about Pamela’s work at www.pamelakayprints.com

This feature is taken from the May 2016 issue of Leisure Painter

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