Night Sail & Black Hope: Last of the River Part 1

← 2m → detail, Parallel Pen, Molotow White marker and Watercolour, A4 sketchbook.

Sail away. sail away, sail away! These are the penultimate batch of river images, I have decided to avoid the river as a subject for the foreseeable future, and so there won’t be many more for a long time. This is because of the lockdown when we were told to take only short exercise and not travel on buses the river was my only landscape subect. After 4-5 months intensive drawing and painting every day of the river, as well as it being a regular subject years before I feel I have totally exhausted it as a subject. I might feel different in future but I need a lot of time away to recover. Thanks Corona!

Black Hope, Molotow White marker, Parallel Pens and Watercolour, A4 sketchbook.

Still I think I went out with a bang. ‘Black Hope’ is an ink and watercolour piece mixing Parallel Pens with watercolour and white Molotow marker, a technique I experimented with for a while. It comes out really bright! The name comes from the black bird – jackdaw? crow? that appeared while I was drawing this and posed for me, and the name of the boat – Tilbury Hope. I hope the name was ironic, since I have been to Tilbury and there isn’t much hope there apart from the hope of getting a boat out of there, sharpish.

Night Sail (Night Work), Parallel Pen, Brush and Candle, A4 sketchbook — Night Sail, Parallel Pen, Brush and Candle, A4 sketchbook

We have a few night works from the river, during the warm evenings. The first is what it says it is – there seemed to be a Night Sail or night regatta on the river, many without lights. So I drew this Parallel Pen piece with wax birthday candles for an ink resists – finding out as a resist those candles aren’t as good as my old kitchen candle. But I think the gloom effect works here.

Raven (Night Work), Ink, Candle and Brush, A4 sketchbook

Then we have ‘Raven’, another ink and wax resist piece created shortly before ‘Night Sail’ of Queen’s Promenade, looking towards Raven’s Ait which looms out of the darkness on the right.

← 2m →, Parallel Pen, Molotow White marker and Watercolour, A4 sketchbook.

And lastly is the second of the ink/watercolour mixed media pieces – they are amazingly bright, even for sketchbook pieces – I guess it’s the ink. That’s the problem, it’s hard to do subtle with this mixed media technique, and it’s easy to go too dark or intense laying watercolour over ink. This piece is a response to the lockdown, on Queen’s Promenade these painted signs saying ? ←2m→ ? which adds an element of darkness to this sunny day. The virus has not gone away! And also the bloke sitting texting while an amazing summer day carries on around him. I don’t get that at all.