Trip Prep: More Scottish Landscape Practice

June 8, 2016 | Leave your thoughts


I am doing a little Scottish landscape practice in my spare time lately – in preparation for my upcoming trip to Scotland. Landscapes are not a subject I do often, so I’m really looking forward to a few weeks of rolling hills and little white houses. It will do me good.


On the weekend I did this sketch, filming it on Snapchat as I was painting.

Filming (holding your finger on the record button), saying something to the point within 10 secs, and working on a painting at the same time is a new form of risk taking – especially when the phone blocks your view of the page.

But regardless of the fact that my focus was more on my snaps than it was on my painting, I was able to get a result that I was happy with.


I am exploring whether to start with paint or pen, and whether to use pen at all. When I have a number of little white houses in the scene, my feeling is that a bit of ink to define them would be good. Last time I did a landscape test I was using watercolour pencils and ignored the little white house in the scene. It is fun to compare the two.

Notes:

  • This sketch is of the very remote village of Rhenigidale in the Isle of Harris. I visited there and sketch from the village looking back up the hill (where I took this photo) in 2010.
  • Why snapchat? I am hearing a lot of people saying that is it going to be the next big platform (eg. like Facebook & Instagram) and I want to start sharing some fun casual video. It is a very different platform and takes a while to get used to it.
  • I have been loving the fact that only a handful of people see what I do and that after 24 hours it is gone – this has been liberating. It is has been great to make lots of mistakes as I learn and then do a better version the next day. It gives me a sense of play that I have lost a bit as I have become ‘more serious’ with my blog and instagram – I LOVE what I do these days, but it is fun to be a raw beginner again. I have been downloading all my videos so I have the ability to share them with you later.
  • I am certainly not suggesting everyone rushes out and signs up straight away (it’s quite a challenge at first to work out how to use it)… but if you are on snapchat already my username is lizsteelart

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