I was scheduled to do the next in my Exploring Edges series today and to look at hard and soft edges creating a sense of depth in a landscape scene. But… someone was a little ambitious to attempt two such series at the one time! So until Foundations Friday has finished I am putting Exploring Edges on hold.

However, I will share with you a landscape sketch that I did on Saturday night. At the time I wrote:

Thinking about Scotland tonight – nearly every Sat evening I Skype my sis who lives in Scotland so Scottish thoughts are a regular feature in my weekends. But today I wanted to do a landscape sketch. I am so out of practice (been too city bound lately) so it was fun to move the paint around and start thinking about a completely different subject matter. I sketched this exact view (from The isle of Skye) 6 years ago. Overdue for a return visit.

The view is the majestic hills of Blaven, from Torrin on the way to Elgol and I sketched from my car during my visit to Skye in 2010. Here is a photo on that sketch.

My sketching craft has developed over the years, but there are still a lot of things I love about the original sketch. One is the flow and ease with which it was done (this was a sketch that only took a few minutes), and the other, much more importantly is the memory I have of doing it and how happy I was at the time.

And here is a scan of last’s week version.

A few thoughts about this sketch:

• I don’t do a lot of landscapes so felt very rusty.
• I decided to do some lines with watercolour pencils first and then a few loose washes over. I enjoyed working this way.
• How would I use this technique if I had a few little white houses to include? (in fact I ignored a house in this version)
• The lighting was rather patchy in the photo so I needed to make a few decisions about value and hue.
• Need to think about techniques for grey flat lighting as well.

After last week’s post about thumbnails I couldn’t help feeling the irony that one of my thoughts while I was doing this sketch was:

“Hmm, landscapes are all about manipulating the colour temperature, value and edges to create depth and there are always a number of different interpretations one could make. Thumbnails would be perfect for exploring these values option.”

So, anyway, after Monday’s notice that I will be going overseas soon, I will further reveal today that I am planning to visit my sister (in Scotland!) before the symposium in Manchester. Yay! I am very excited about that. (Oops! there is that ‘excited’ word again!)

And so, as I think about revisiting Scotland I am thinking about the sketching subjects there and challenges that I will be faced with. I remember some sketches that I really struggled with in 2009 and 2010 when I was last in the Highlands so I want to do a little Trip Prep to get me in the mood, to explore a few techniques and to test out a few colour mixes. Did you notice this page on Monday’s post?

Last year I was so busy leading up to Singapore and Cambodia that I didn’t get a chance to really think about the temples of Angkor Wat, what challenges they would pose and how I would need an extra supply of Van Dyke Brown – I ran out!.

So over the next few weeks, I am going to re-visit a few old sketches, do some more colour tests, start my usual last minute sewing and just generally try to get my brain into gear. I have a long trip with a number of projects to work on, as well as some down-time with family and friends… and some solo time for working on my own sketching.

Final note: I much prefer to sketch on location but there are times when using photos for homework has a lot of benefit. This is especially the case when you re-visit scenes that you have sketched before and struggled with! But in general, sketching out on location is the best!