The lonely windmill

I’m not exactly sure where it came from, but I suddenly had an idea early this week about something I wanted to create. I might even be able to say that it was a moment of inspiration…

I’d been thinking about some of my pieces from March/April this year. Back when I turned to art as a way of coping with the UK’s lockdown. The subject of one of these pieces was a dilapidated windmill that I’d seen at Horsey Mere in Norfolk. I wrote about this in my ‘Dealing with Denial’ post in April.

On reflection, I think I rushed this piece quite a bit. I didn’t really know what I was doing with the watercolours so I decided to create it quickly. It has an air of the dramatic about it but I suppose I never thought I’d really done it justice.

Fast forward to this week and I decided I wanted to do it again. I wanted to work harder at reflecting its dilapidated state but I also wanted to add a more vibrant angle to the piece as well. I suppose it’s probably accurate to say that this is a good reflection of the internal conflict I’m experiencing at the moment – the dark, negative, depressing moments (like the sun setting an hour earlier!) and the more positive, uplifting, motivated moments. I definitely flick between both worlds regularly.

I started by thinking about the background. I’d already decided that I’d use pen for the main subject. I can’t quite explain it but I always seem to be able to make pen do what I want it to do. It’s the only thing I’ve used where the picture looks good both up close and from a distance. For the background, though, I wanted something more colourful – a reflection of the more positive side to life. I decided to use some watercolours for this and thought back to my collared dove piece with its random splash of colours. I decided on cadmium yellow, alizarin crimson and prussian blue and just let the paint flow wherever it wanted to.

I then got my pens out. My partner very kindly bought me some more pens for my birthday in July and it turns out that these are much better quality than the ones I already had. I’m not sure what it is about watercolour paint (or paper) but when I did my Brent goose piece in April, I learnt very quickly that it wears down certain fine liner pens almost instantaneously. These pens from my partner, though, seemed to withstand the strain – big tick for him!

Lines rather than dots are my friend when it comes to pen. Dots take a very long time to build up texture whereas lines are quicker and (in my opinion) have a better effect. I tried to have as steady a hand as possible when I started with the blades – I really didn’t want to get them wrong! – and I had to think hard about how to make them stand out. It can seem logical to add darker tones in these situations but, actually, it often pays to hold back on the pen to add a bit of contrast.

I then added layers of lines on the rest of the building by criss-crossing the ink at different angles. Up close, it just looks like normal crosshatching, but, from a distance, it almost looks like brickwork that’s falling apart. That’s exactly what I was aiming for (even if it was a bit by accident!) 

I’m thinking that this might be a new style to explore further. Though I’d tweak some things if I were to create this again (particularly the grass), I really love the contrast between the background and the subject and I think it could work for a range of pictures. And, cheeky plug, if you particularly like this one, it’s available in my landscapes collection in the EmilyRamblings Redbubble shop!

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