TIM BAKER

I came across a cache of old photos sang the Pet Shop Boys, and similarly I came across a cache of river bank images I never posted from 2021, and some new ones from 2022 that I’ve done before and after my trip. First up is this view of the Ginger Bees cafe from 2021, created in my A5 sketchbook. Not sure why I didn’t post it, it’s a lovely drawing. I do still use my A5 sketchbooks, mostly for drawing on public transport.

This is a fairly recent parallel pen piece – created just before I left for my trip, so late July or early August. You can see the effect of the heatwave in that yellowy grass, that was even more evident on my trip where I struggled to get the right shade of greeny-brown-yellowy-purple that a lot of the hills were!

I refilled my parallel pens for the trip, hence why I know this was done just before I went. I tweak the colours every time I do so, I mix my own – I tend to go for secondary colours and a dark blue/black so I can use washes and line and layer them, so a purple, a yellowy orange, blue black and a red-brown. Ironically I only used the parallel pens once on the trip, and in monochrome!

Surprised I didn’t post this 2021 piece, either I did it after the big posts I did around the Kingston Regatta which featured a lot of similar drawings of geese and dinghies. But I love the Canada Goose drawing and the composition, which as always was fairly accidental (as in I was drawing the dinghies and then the geese arrived, I don’t pre-plan these things or make stuff up, it’s a document of that moment in time, a consolidation of a hour or so into one drawing).

A more recent piece of Achelous – a large house barge I have painted and drawn before – next to the Princess Rose, a daytrip boat I guess owned by Turk’s boatyard. This is in Inktense paints, and fountain pen. I have been painting and drawing boats on the river since 2018, so weirdly they are like old friends, many appear in my work repeatedly and I notice as they come, go, or even in some cases sink.

One of these frequent subjects is the barge Wild Thyme which I’ve drawn again below, also from 2021.

Another frequent subject on the river is birds – I prefer drawing geese and actually find swans really hard – especially their necks and head – so here is some recent practice studies of swans on the river. A goose and a few ducks did crash the party though….

It’s hard to catch swans doing anything other than looking expectantly at you begging for food, so flapping of wings here was a rarity, as was the preening and diving.

I think the detail part is the best, but again remember I am drawing these live – these are bird life studies, so to speak! Much harder than copying a photo, but it forces you to actually look and notice their movements, and character. And also learn how to draw really fast, and also when they move, you learn to look at other birds to see if they repeat the pose.

Another frequent landmark I draw is the two trees across the river, I am not sure if they are poplars or cypresses, but I call them the Two Sisters (there’s a little sister or brother to the far left). This is a piece again from 2021, a watercolour and fountain pen piece which again I seem not to have posted…I do so many of these I get rather picky at what I post.

It’s like my default subject, since it’s near where I live and a quick thing to do – I get bored with it and never paint them for ages, and then find myself down there depicting them again as it’s really late, or I find some other angle. I know them so well they are a good subject for night painting, as I could draw or paint them with my eyes closed, helpful when it’s actually pitch black and I’m working off feel, the position of paints in the palette and not very much streetlight.

So here is a more recent take I did a few days ago using Inktense paints and sgraffito, a night painting – the subtitle comes from John who asked ‘what’s the white stuff?’, not realising how watercolour or water-based paints work, if working quickly you have to leave bits as dry safeguards because otherwise it will spread everywhere – and unlike watercolour, inktense is pretty permanent (although being graphite you can rub it out, it will likely wreck watercolour paper if you do much of that).

And a few days later I did this piece, another night painting. I actually thought I’d left my watercolours at home hence the Inktense one above, but realised I actually did have the palette in my bag, so I was primed to have another go – and then I saw that there was a group from Raven’s Ait kayaking at night.

They take groups kayaking – and they had lights on their kayaks. I am trying to do more pieces without lines, so this is part of that…I like how the sky came out and the light reflections – you couldn’t really see the kayaks by this time, just shadows.