A Moorland Landscape Ink & Pastel Tutorial

A Moorland Landscape Ink & Pastel Tutorial

In this second posting artist Gerry Halpin talks about how his community surroundings influenced a improve in media for his current series of Moorland paintings. Follow his tutorial to make a landscape utilizing acrylic inks and smooth pastels. We hope you are influenced to have a go on your own and write-up your results in the responses under!


A Moorland Landscape Ink & Pastel Tutorial
Listed here is the concluded portray by Gerry Halpin- abide by the techniques under to build your have variation

A improve in media

In my previous article Portray Coastal Landscapes I talked about how I discover inspiration for my paintings from visits to the coast. I luckily dwell shut to the West Pennine Moors which importantly deliver an immediate space of great matter matter to function from.

The moors, in all seasons, are an countless supply of subjects. It’s the wild ruggedness alongside with tough climate situations that just take me up with sketch e-book and digital camera. Up there I find setting up factors which capture my consideration and inspire my creativity.

Bare trees, rough hedges, previous gate posts, dry stone partitions and telegraph poles are fascinating objects. They symbolise the location and the weather conditions, usually rather remarkable, provides atmosphere and temper to the portray.

Even though I normally paint in acrylics, I have not long ago returned to ink and watercolour for these paintings. These mediums enable me to interpret the exhilaration I come upon of a moorland landscape. They deliver the independence I require, by their fluidity, to convey the ‘sensation’ of staying ‘in the landscape’ in contrast to simply recording the found picture. The paintings seize some thing of my inner thoughts for the subject and as these types of are works pretty one of a kind to their creator.

Materials you will require for the tutorial

An image of a tray of art products used for the demo.
  • Delicate pastel – one in a contrasting color to the inks, I have utilized a pale orange.
  • Brushes – Winsor & Newton Cotman and ProArte Prolene brushes of many sizes, the two flat and round. Synthetic brushes are best used as sable brushes are significantly as well pricey for dipping into and scrumbling about with inks. I like scratching into the soaked ink with a palette knife, fork or scraps of card to create appealing textural marks.
  • Two pots of water. One normally remaining clear for first washes and the other to hold brushes clean up.

The Sketch

From an initial sketch, I draw the image without fussy detail, just the essentials of the composition.
From an initial sketch, I attract the graphic without the need of fussy detail, just the essentials of the composition.

Action 1: Portray the sky

Paint the sky very first to build the temper of the painting. Listed here I have blended a grey with a hint of cobalt blue. Following wetting the spot ready for the color, I sweep the loaded brush throughout the moist area. I do not use drinking water or color in excess of the whole of the higher floor, I really like leaving uncooked paper in the completed painting.

As this dries (the ‘sheen’ goes off) I then flood in pure cobalt blue, employing the ink bottle dropper. This partly spreads around the previous clean of grey, leaving gentle spots and additional extreme areas of colour. This process is not only thrilling but also terrifying! The volume of ink made use of and the wetness of the paper will final result in a random distribution of the pigment. The independence of the flow of clean about wash, will help to obtain the uniqueness of the painting. Undeniably, it’s a method which demands substantially follow in buy to maintain some handle and even now attain remarkable outcomes. So, do not despair on your early experiments, it normally takes braveness, and the course of action is so gratifying.

Image of step 1 of the painting

Phase 2: Portray the center distance

A clean of yellow orange azo to suggest bracken further than the hedge in the middle length is painted across the by now evenly soaked paper. I use a square stop brush, twisting as it’s dragged throughout the paper. I leave gaps of white paper to produce the illusion of some area. Applying the brush sideways, I bring a couple of slim lines of the orange down to the lower section of the paper to trace at a feeling of perspective, primary the eye into the painting. 

Time for a coffee although this region dries.

Phase 3: Painting in the hedge

Image of step 3 of the painting

Future, I insert a clean across the paper of the earlier gray to create the hedge spot. I tease the pigment down with clear water, lightening its energy as an underpainting for the extra extraordinary dark hedge to stick to. Even though it is even now damp, some turquoise (just one of my favorite colors) is randomly included to the lessen edges, in this situation with my finger dipped in the ink! This provides in a even further colour prospect and suggests the ‘after rain wetness’ of the moor.

Action 4: Now for the drama of the dim hedge itself

An image of step 4 of the painting

Dipped in sepia ink, a loaded square stop brush is dragged throughout the dry paper. Lingering for more time in 3 sites exactly where the two trees and a visible gate publish will be positioned. As the ink soaks in, clear h2o is extra to slender the pigment into a wash. This trails down and around the past zig zag of colours to convey the perspective forward.

Whilst the sepia is nevertheless soaked, a dim indigo ink is included with a dropper to all those three characteristic regions. This straight away fuses with the sepia, emphasising them much more strongly. Swiftly, I drag the pigment vertically up and down with a kitchen fork, generating marks suggestive of tough reeds and grasses which expand out from the tangle of the hedge.

This procedure is an appealing way of exhibiting foreground reflections, seen in the wetness of the land. This helps in developing the singular temper and environment staying aimed for in this type of portray. The moorland can be a wild and rugged area at moments, which is how I practical experience it and which is why I have adopted and tailored these tactics to convey not only what I have found but also what I have felt.

Move 5: The ending touches

An image of the final finished painting including the finishing touches

Agency up the distant hills utilizing the exact same grey clean as the sky, thinned down with a little thoroughly clean h2o. Distant bushes are instructed with some stronger drops of the similar color brushed on to the reduce edge of the hills. The consequence is that these intense drops of colour fuse into the slender soaked region of the hills manufacturing an impact regarded as ‘treeing’. It is a extremely suitable system in this scenario, although it can be the trigger of problems in some watercolour washes.   

At last, bare trees are positioned applying sepia ink used with a dropper on dry paper for the key trunks, then introducing the finer branches with a dipping pen.  A skinny clean of sepia signifies some foliage and fence posts are additional with dropper and pen.

Pale orange pastel scribbled close to the hedge breaks up the dark areas with out detracting from the all round impact I want to express of this normal see of the moors and fells of the North. Operating in this way is not without its frustrations, it doesn’t normally go very well. But, with ongoing observe, comprehension and understanding, it can be a most fulfilling method to portray. 

Ultimately, have pleasurable experimenting

As a self-taught artist, I would encourage any one to take into consideration trying new media, or even have an experimental solution with the media you like to work with. Drive the boundaries of your awareness and don’t be as well valuable about your results. Some paintings will inevitably fail, I have had my share, on the other hand, study from individuals blunders. Check with yourself what it is that doesn’t perform and how it went completely wrong. Be self-critical and by that you will acquire assurance. Turn into cozy with the tactics you employ and go on to take pleasure in the exhilaration of generating an initial portray. I appreciate painting at every single prospect I have. 


Gerry Halpin is a Member, a past Trustee and a Past President of Manchester Academy of Fine Arts (MAFA) and with whom he has exhibited extensively considering the fact that his election to Membership in 2001. Gerry was appointed MBE in 2009 for his operate in Art and Charities. In 2022 he was invited to turn into a member of the National Acrylic Painters Affiliation (NAPA). His paintings have been exhibited with the ROI, RSMA and RI in the Mall Galleries, London. In the 2014 ROI exhibition, he was awarded the Menina Pleasure Schwabe prize for an excellent function.

You can see a Gerry’s perform on his internet site. A range of his Moorland paintings can be observed in true lifestyle at Windermere Fine Art Gallery.