Project 3 Exercise 1:
 Developing your studies

Whilst exploring my home village. I fell in love with this view. 

 Everything in this view falls behind the glimpse of the Cotswold stone wall you see at the forefront. 

 There is another stone wall that runs through the middle of this view point. 

 Having studied trees in previous exercises, I wanted to take a look at these trees. They are easy to understand in this view. I can see their separation, their definite shape and colour. 

 It is a vast green scene with a number of compositional elements. 

 I want to work backwards from the wall, with an aim to include as much of the detail as possible. The very furthest element I see is the very small house in the background to the left of the scene. 

 The sky is blue with a scattering of very light and delicate clouds. 

 The walls are a feature I would like to concentrate, perhaps by making the middle wall the main feature. The stones are textured and worn.  However, I am also drawn to the contrast of the dark shadows that fall beneath the trees. 


I start with a quick sketch sketch with a fine line: 


This quick sketch has helped me roughly mark out the composition of the landscape. 

I take a sheet of A3 white paper and sketch again with further details. Marking in where each piece of the landscape is. I also use my line to build an idea of shapes and textures. 

The trees in the middle are all slightly different shapes. I would like to try and capture this. My priority here though were my focal points, the walls and the shadows of the trees: 



I next start to block in colour with watercolours: 




Reflection: 

I am really pleased to have captured the elements of this viewpoint. 

The composition in the scene is layered with a wall in the foreground, a wall in the middle ground and the trees in the background. I feel I have captured these layers, this element is a success. 

I loved the shadows in the scene, the contrast in colour the naturally created to the eye.  However here in the colour drawing I feel I should have used a darker shade of green rather than the grey I have chosen. I wanted to create an interesting contrast, however the colour against the very bright green of the grass hasn't worked as I had hoped. 

I am satisfied that my confidence has increased and I was able to include many elements of a busy scene. 

I have been studying this landscape by Vincent Van Gogh 'Landscape with Green Corn'. 

The composition includes a foreground, middle-ground and background. 

Each layer has been blocked into the canvas with bold colour and energised marks. yet the scene appears uncomplicated. 

The sky is bright blue, however I can feel the breeze in the air in this piece as Van Gogh has created movement in the interesting lines and marks of the corn and the tall centre tree. 

The texture of the corn has been created for the viewer in the corn in the foreground. 


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