Watercolour Illustration - Gurneys
I’m quite pleased with myself. That’s something not often heard from my own mouth (or pen). But my first attempt at urban sketching came out “okay” for a beginner.
Here’s how and why it was made.
Why I Started Urban Sketching
For some months I’ve been buzzing around various art forms, not quite able to define what I really liked. I had my first attempts at watercolour painting within an art group I’d just joined at the start of the year - the first term was set on watercolours. My attempts were only partially successful, and the first real time I had actually picked up and used a paint brush.
I went on to doing art journal pages using mixed media, but with an emphasis on acrylics. My art journal pages are mostly done from online step by step classes - but I do always change my pages up from the tutor’s originals. Although I use these classes as a relaxation device, it always felt a little like cheating to me. I wasn’t being “original”.
That was a personal decision, mind you. In a previous life I was an award winning and published scrapbooker and paper artist, belonged on a few design groups and taught a few classes at retreats. Then, it was all about coming up with my own art and designs.
Now, with a focus on my writing practice and understanding that my art practise writes into this, I decided to mainly form my own artwork on other people’s classes giving me the best of both worlds - less effort but still those few hours of handmade creativity.
It still feels a little like cheating, though. So, kowtowing to the ADHD side of me, I tend to complicate most projects by blending various classes and designs into some monster or another.
When I started writing my new cosy creature project (PCC), I naturally progressed to augmenting the writing with similarly themed art projects. And I continued to seek out which art forms - whether it really was acrylics, art journals or something else - was the more likely to stick around for me.
When I discovered urban sketching, and the cuteness of sketching cosy things like shopfronts and cottages, maybe even illustrating creatures - well, I had to give it a go. Thus came another beginner attempt at sketching and using watercolours. I decided to apply my first attempts through my storyworld.
Gurneys Fish Shop & Humble Pie Deli
The Gurneys Fish Shop watercolour illustration I completed this last week is from the real life setting of Burnham Market, U.K. It’s a shop frontage I’ve long admired, even though I don’t buy much fish in real life. Who doesn’t like quaint shopfronts?
The real life town of Burnham Market has been chosen for a reason. My husband and his family come from the area, and Gurneys sits across the green from a cottage my husband was actually born in. When we lived during our first years of marriage in Cambridgeshire, U,K. we travelled to Burnham and it’s environments on several occasions so I actually know it somewhat.
The shop was originally called Humble Pie, a delicatessen. Not to be confused with the supergroup Humble Pie, formed by Steve Marriott and Peter Frampton in Essex, in 1969. The delicattessen was formed in 1980. In 1992 Mike Gurney set up the Gurney fish shops based on local oysters and fish. At some point, Humble Pie moved upstairs allowing Gurneys to take over the ground floor shop. The turquoise-green coloured shopfront of Humble Pie made way for the striking blue of Gurneys. Both shopfront photographs remain online and both versions can still be found used by sketch artists from all over the world.
The Creation
The illustration itself was initially based on the short demo I found online by Shari Blaukopf, a Canadian artist who had visited Burnham at some point and taken a reference photo of the shop. Because I was very new to all of this, I allowed myself to be lead by her demo, but also did what I always do, and made it my own by adding the top story of the shop using a couple of my own reference photos.
As a newbie, I only have a small supply of student grade Cotman pan watercolours. I found these to be quite light after drying, so have a wish list to slowly collect some professional level tube watercolours and put together my own palette. I also tried Shari’s ink fountain pen recommendations only to find that after waiting for ages for the purchase to arrive in Australia, my pens were a cloned brand and certainly not waterproof, so I had to return to micropen markers.
I also used another technique I’ve been learning from another urban sketch artist, Ian Fennelly, He uses grey toned waterbrush markers for shading on watercolours. I like this, and will retain it for my practise.
I was also surprised to find I liked the 300gsm coldpress paper I used. I tend to like mixed media and hotpress, and don’t like the texture of coldpress. But obviously it works for watercolours.
What I would change for next time - I want to do more appropriate brick work, eventually I’d like slightly better watercolours.
What I can improve on - inside windows, brickwork, adding my own interpretations, forming my own style (it’s growing, but not solid yet).
What I learnt about myself - the feeling that I should hold a daily and travel sketchbook practice has certainly gained traction with this full illustration. Also, I have a real liking of capturing quaint shopfronts.
Oh, and I forgot to sign and date my first work, I was so excited to post it. So next time, I’ll do that…
