Two Malhams

In this post, I want to introduce you to a beautiful place. It’s called Malham Cove. For those of you from Barlick and around, you’ll probably already know about this Yorkshire Dales icon. For anyone else, it’s a highly recommended place to visit if you ever find yourself around the Dales in a post-Covid world!

The Yorkshire Dales website describes Malham Cove as a ‘70 metre (230ft) high, gently curving cliff of white limestone’. It also says that the cove has amazed people for centuries. And amaze is definitely the right way to put it.

I remember the first time I took my partner there. It was an absolutely horrific day weather-wise. That sort of drizzle that just soaked you through. Despite this, we went ahead and walked from the car park past the quaint houses and pubs of Malham village and onto the paths through the fields. You can’t see the cove from the village but when you get that glimpse of it from the track, it just takes your breath away. A huge scar in the landscape. So when my sister mentioned that she fancied a picture of Malham Cove for her birthday, I couldn’t wait to get my watercolours out and have a go.

I knew I’d have to be prepared to add layers to the picture and patience was therefore critical. So I found a photo taken from one of our trips, prepared myself for a long art session and got to work.

The first piece I did was pretty true to the photo (minus a few foreground details). I started with the sky by adding clean water to the page and then dropped blue paint into it – this is a technique I learnt quite recently and it’s a really good way to create a convincing cloudy sky. After focusing on the foreground next, I moved onto the main event. 

To get the grey colour of the cove, I basically mixed all of the colours I’d already used together – I hate wasting paint! I started with a very light, watery layer before gradually getting darker and darker. I experimented with the colours and effects by dropping different colours into the paint while it dried at different stages. 

I was very pleased with the final version. But then I looked at it again and thought it was a bit dark and depressing for a birthday present… So I decided that the wintery one would be one for me to keep and my sister’s one would be lighter and a bit more autumnal.

I tried to control myself a little more with the depth of the colours this time. I didn’t want the cove to be too dark but I also didn’t want it to lack detail. I propped it up every now and then to check what it looked like from a distance too. This is always a challenge when I paint – what looks good up close can look totally different from a distance and chances are someone in the future is looking at it from a distance! I also thought hard about how to mix the autumnal colours together in a way that would add to – rather than distract from – the cove itself.

The time just disappeared while I was painting and I was over the moon with the finished product. It’s genuinely the best thing I think I’ve painted. And, most importantly, my sister absolutely loved the gift!