Saglek Fjord Sketches 04

Pencil Sketch

A Glacier...  

...in the middle of the mountains.   

Glaciers are rivers of ice and snow that work their way down to the sea. Glaciers remain frozen from one winter to the next.       

Saglek Fjord Sketches 03

Oil-Bar Glaze Sketch

A Cirque...  

...behind a cliff.   

A cirque is the rounded out hollow at the end of a mountain valley, which has been scooped out by the erosion of glaciers and meltwater streams.       

Saglek Fjord Sketches 02

Acrylic and Oil Sketch

Landing Beach...  

...in layers of colors.   

Light and shadow on a cloudy day enhance the contours of the islands and the mountains.       

Saglek Fjord Sketches 01

Pencil Sketch

Landing Beach...  

...seen from a distance.   

From the water, almost lost among the towering cliffs of the Torngat Mountains, tiny strips of rock and pebbles indicate good landing areas.       

Landscape with Water 04 - Cliffside Erosion

Light and Shadow on Weathered Rock

Thousands of years of freeze and thaw...  

...glaciers and wind and rain reveals the texture of the rock.   

These rocks are among the oldest in the world, and people study them for what they reveal about the history of the Earth. Torngat Base Camp, Torngat Mountains National Park, northern Labrador, Canada.     

Landscape with Water 03 - Calm Water Reflections

Calm Water Reflections of Clouds and Mountains

Early Morning Quiet on the Water...  

...shows a mirror reflection of mountains and clouds.   

In a landscape as weathered as this, an hour of calm and quiet must be a rarity. Torngat Base Camp, Torngat Mountains National Park, northern Labrador, Canada.      

Landscape with Water 02 - Hills and Sunshine

The Depth of Mountains Behind Mountains

Gradations of Tone Simulate Three Dimensions...  

...with light and shadow on the mountain side.   

Light and shadow on the mountain ridges gives depth to the scene. Torngat Base Camp, Torngat Mountains National Park, northern Labrador, Canada.      

Landscape with Water 01 - Hills and Reflections

Mountains Rising From the Sea

Lights and Darks and Gradations of Tone...  

...mountains rising from the sea.   

Eye and mind combine to give an impression that comes from memory and imagination. Torngat Base Camp, Torngat Mountains National Park, northern Labrador, Canada.      

Preliminary Drawing - Pinware River 4 - Value Sketch

Preliminary Drawing for Bones of the Earth series

"Pinware River 4, Labrador" Value Sketch

graphite on paper, 9" x 14"

One way for an artist to check that a composition will work in a finished painting is to do a preliminary value sketch in tones of black and white. The artist ensures that areas of one tone lie against areas of contrasting tone.

Textures and details are not important in a value sketch, just placing tonal masses so that the composition reads well.
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Bones of the Earth - Capstan Island Battery

Bones of the Earth - Capstan Island Battery
Oil on Canvas, 11 3/4" x 15 3/4"

detail: Bones of the Earth - Capstan Island Battery

No matter how ancient and impressive the geology might be, there are times when it is outstripped by the fleeting drama of the clouds and the transient character of the foliage in a scene.

Each of these natural processes take place in its own time frame and with its own cycle of activity. That's a lot to think about when you are looking at a painting!

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Preliminary Drawing: The Battery 1

Preliminary Drawing for Bones of the Earth series
"The Battery" - Capstan Island, Labrador
Graphite on paper, 7" x 14"

The weathered cliff face of "The Battery" rises to a height of over 900 feet above sea level on the Labrador side of the Strait of Belle Isle in eastern Canada, between the communities of L'Anse au Loup and Capstan Island.

This astonishing formation is made of layers of different types of rock which settled at the bottom of a primordial ocean thousands and thousands of years ago. Nowadays in the summertime on this headland, we can see green and brown stripes of vegetation clinging to the hills, and in the winter, we can see blue and white stripes of ice and snow blown into crevices.

That we get to see anything at all is because of geological forces which pushed this mass of rock well above sea level as part of the Appalachian mountain chain, and because of weathering forces which have eroded this ancient peak into its present rugged form.
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Preliminary Drawing: Littoral 1

Preliminary Drawing for "Bones of the Earth" series
"Littoral" - The Strand, Red Bay, Labrador.
Graphite on paper, 9" x 11"


At the same time as I am having fun observing the erosion effects of the rocks in this area, I am also having fun with the technical names of the features I am portraying.

The word "Littoral" relates to a shore, especially the sea-shore, and most particularly in a coastal region, the shore zone between high and low water marks.

I suppose I could have said, "Rocks at Low Tide" but that other word is a lot more interesting!

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Apples 7

Apples 7

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Graphite on paper, 6.5" x 10"

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Apples sliced horizontally, across their equators, show the core of the apple as a star. The star is a group of pods gripping the apple seeds in place with just a tiny bit of room for expansion when they sprout.

With daylight from the window raking across the flat cut surface, you can see the structural details of the apple, too, reinforcing the pentagon geometry of this fruit, and you can also see the lights and darks of the paper underneath the apple.

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Apples 6

Apples 6

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Graphite on paper, 6.5" x 10"
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The surface of the apple has dappled color markings, as well as tonal gradations from the apple's spherical shape. It also has highlights and shadows from lighting, and more lights and darks from reflections.

Graphite leaves a grey mark on paper, and the softer the grade of graphite, the darker grey the mark is. The trick to drawing with graphite is to use different grades of graphite in order to achieve a complete tonal range that can represent all the lights and darks needed in the drawing.
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Apples 5

Apples 5

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Graphite on paper, 6.5" x 10"

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You don't think of still life arrangements as having movement, and you don't think of apples sitting on plates as giving gestures, but they do. This is a gesture drawing of an apple, selected out of a sheetful of apple gestures.

So what gesture does an apple have? An expression of weight, of sitting balanced on a base point, of mass, of a spherical form, and overall an expression of how the fruit grew from the core out to the surface. That is the gesture of an apple.

Apples 4

Apples 4

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Graphite on paper, 6.5" x 10"
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This somewhat lopsided apple shows highlights from two windows and reflections from around the room and also reflections from the shiny plate it is sitting on. The shiny plate acts as a mirror, too, reflecting the apple back to itself. The only true shadow areas are underneath the apple where it touches the plate, and at the boundaries of the spherical form.
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Apples 3

Apples 3

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Graphite on paper, 6.5" x 10"
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An apple cut in half yields two hemisperical forms each with a flat plane revealing the inside of the fruit. Cut from top to bottom, the apple's core shows a seed pod, with its distinctive oval shape, and tiny protective capsules holding the tear-drop shaped seeds.

Drawing the seed pod is a challenge because it is so small and so intricate, and while its lights and shadows can be suggested with graphite, the marks must be accurate to make the flat plane surface look like something is resting underneath.
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Apples 2

Apples 2
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Graphite on paper, 6.5" x 10"

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The spherical form of an apple displays beautiful gradations of highlights and shadows. The apple's peel is shiny and reflects its surroundings, so the highlights and shadows are changed.

Drawing a spherical form in graphite could become a mechanical job, but with the irregular form of the fruit and the reflections from the surroundings, observing and recording the apple becomes a lot more interesting.

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Apples 1

Apples 1

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Graphite on paper, 6.5" x 10"

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Apples are great to draw.

Apples are generally round, which gives the artist the challenge of rendering lights and darks on a spherical surface, except when they are cut open, which provides another challenge of rendering planes in perspective.

Apples seen in bright light catch highlights and produce cast shadows of interesting shapes and tonal ranges, and apples placed on a shiny surface give the artist an additional set of reflections to puzzle over.

But when the drawing is done, the benefit of drawing apples is that you get to eat them!

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Rocks 6

Rocks 6
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Graphite on paper, 6.5" x 10"

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Shape. Well, form, really. Shape is the two dimensional aspect of what we see and Form is the three dimensional aspect. Cezanne said there are four basic forms: the cone, the cube, the cylinder, and the sphere.

Rocks are "formed" chunks of solidified magma that have been chipped apart and worn away to varying degrees. The more the rocks are weathered and tumbled by wind and wave motion - and depending on the softness of the materials they are made of - the smoother the surface and the more rounded the form they have.

To draw realistic looking rocks requires paying attention to how the 3D form of the rock produces highlights and shadows, and then to rendering them as lighter and darker 2D areas flat on the paper.