Torn Paper Lines - Extra Activity

I was dithering dreadfully choosing a photograph that might work for a triptych of images until I had to take a trip up to North Yorkshire. On the drive from the north coast of Norfolk, through Lincolnshire and up through Yorkshire I experienced a diversity of landscapes in quite quick succession. The undulating Norfolk coast, the agricultural flatness of Lincolnshire, through the rolling but hilly countryside  of South Yorkshire and then the gaunt landscape of North Yorkshire. I was struck by a number of aspects of this northern  landscape: the simplicity of the natural lines, the simplicity of the man made marks on the landscape, the simple stark colours of the landscape. My idea for a triptych was solved.

The Landscape

I chose a very simple landscape to work with and one that really seemed to capture the landscape that I had driven through. Would be good to revisit this in winter:

Firstly I made a straight forward view of this:

Then I cut out the foreground and took a higher viewpoint:

And finally the foreground and middle distance:

The three together

One final go

I had one final go with this technique before deciding to move on. It's clearly such a useful technique I could have worked lots of pieces. Quite close to me is a priory destroyed by Henry viii - Castle Acre Priory. It is quite simply the most uplifting place; lots of bare stone upright structures some here and there with remaining plaster work and lots of doorways with views to the world outside.  All very enticing. I went over and took a photo, quite early in the day, of a doorway with a view of the grounds. 

There were lots of textures here and strong differences in light. I made a base of wax crayon resist with water colour and then more crayon on top. It was a useful exercise in itself to try and develop textured papers:

Then filling in the remainder, simplifying some of the details:

This reminded me of something from a child's book of fairy story.

I always stay clear of committing myself to painting landscapes, this may be because my father is a landscape painter and I've never felt up to the task and also I may have a different purpose going through my head when seeing things. However I've found this technique quite liberating. It delivers the business with a punch but none of the angst. I hope that makes sense.