The Progress of a Landscape Painting ~ Stainforth Foss

The Progress of a Landscape Painting ~ Stainforth Foss

It's not often that I remember to take so many progress photos of a watercolour landscape but on this occasion I did, so I thought I'd share the progression here. This is a painting from a photo I took at Stainforth Foss in Yorkshire back in Nov 2024. I'd done some sketches en plein air but felt like I hadn't done the scene justice in the short time I'd been sitting there so I took a photo and ended up using it for a class at The Emporium.

With watercolours you start building up the colour from light to dark, working in washes which can sometimes be used over the whole page but I tend to keep the colours in the areas they appear.

I first draw out the main features of the landscape once I've decided what composition to paint...or in this case, photograph. The bridge is the focal point here and I decided to give the trees more autumnal leaves since most had fallen by the time this picture was taken.

I usually start with the sky, and in this case the sky reflected in the water as well while I have the colour. First washes are always quite loose, letting paint bleed and blend into each other to give a soft effect. The order that I paint is determined by what's wet and what will bleed if another wet layer is put next to it. Sometimes you want this blending and sometimes you don't.
Once all the elements are in, it's a case of seeing where needs to be darker to create contrast in tone. Adding stronger details in the foreground can help with perspective. I try not to cover the whole paper with multiple layers of watercolour, leaving some areas either white or the first wash. I'm also not bothered about leaving little gaps of paper over the surface as this helps with the depth, lightness and fresh feeling of the work.
This painting is available mounted or un-mounted 10x8 in the webshop.

 

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