The Tower – Plein Air Sketching

A watercolour sketch of the tower - golden sandstone against a brilliant blue sky.
The Tower at Wentworth Old Church

We spent a glorious morning sketching at Wentworth village yesterday. And I wanted to concentrate on the tower of the Old Church. As you can see , the sky was a brilliant blue and cloudless for a couple of hours. However, I don’t think I captured the full effect of the brightness of the colour with a quick watercolour sketch. ( about 20 minutes ) . But I was pleased with my attempt at painting the soft, glowing sandstone. In fact , you can see a more detailed description of a sketchcrawl at the old church here . That’s when I sat in the shady churchyard and painted the gravestones and a monument. It’s great to be going out plein air sketching with some of my art buddies again .

10 Replies to “The Tower – Plein Air Sketching”

  1. Beautiful, Margaret! Seems always hard to get the full effect we want, at least for me, lol! But this has such a gentle look, and those thin dark lines really bring it to focus! Are those w/pen or marker?

    1. Thank you so much , Felipe. I had to use black biro for the marks because all my markers have run dry ! I must order some more ! I often add pen to my quick watercolour sketches to give more definition . I’m by no means a watercolour expert but it’s ideal to get some colour down quickly .

      1. I think the added definition adds a lot to this image, gives it structure yet, probably cause of the way you made the lines, retains a softness I’m guessing was your fondness for this site in real life – how I perceive it anyways, lol! 😊 Gonna go look up biro! ☺️

    1. Thank you so much . I find stone quite difficult to represent in watercolour so I’m glad if it looks fairly convincing. The only way to do outdoor sketching is just to go out and do it ! I think that even through the car window counts !

    1. Thank you, Suzanne. I don’t know why you can’t like – it is enabled. One of the mysteries of WP!

Let me know what you think !