My favourite view – Watercolour in a Watercolour Moleskine
This attempts to show the view, from Tormain Woods in Ratho, towards Edinburgh. This area forms part of a regular walk for me but never fails to impress. The woods were formed, a long time ago, around the edges of local farms. When the fields were initially cleared lots of large boulders, like the ones shown, were pushed towards the fields’ edges and this ground became useless for farming. Later on vast amounts of beech trees were planted, probably as nursery trees to give some sort of shelter from the prevailing westerly winds. You can tell, by the way the foliage in this tree is “wind sculpted” which direction the weather normally prevails. Now that lots of these trees have reached maturity far-sighted farmers have introduced a programme of planting new trees – represented by the saplings in the foreground. Although I have only shown two of these there must be many hundreds in the woods. A promise planted for the future. You can see some photos of Tormain Woods by accessing this shot and navigating from there:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/28475994@N00/5153651255/
Looking further afield Edinburgh Castle is on the horizon just above the right edge of the rocks and about ten miles away. To the right of the castle is the dormant volcano, Arthur’s Seat, which dominates the skyline around the city. The rounded hill, just under the beech tree itself is Corstorphine Hill, one of the main “Seven Hills of Edinburgh”. More shots of Corstorphine Hill can be seen by navigating around this photo:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/28475994@N00/4369752923/
Ratho Village is just around the right hand edge of the middle distant trees. My family and I have stayed here for over thirty years.
arqetancourt 10:26 am on November 11, 2010 | #
Hermosos colores y una luz maravillosa!!
Beautiful colors and a wonderful light!!
Nikira 4:57 pm on November 11, 2010 | #
Wonderful how you take the essence of the scene, choose main characteristics, it is so easy to get overwhelmed by the details, I love the ground the most.
Alberto Cuadra 10:23 pm on November 11, 2010 | #
I find this kind of nature scenes so awfully difficult to capture and you just make it look easy as pie. Brilliant use of light.
Uncle Bob 5:50 am on November 12, 2010 | #
Gracias Arqetancourt. Me parece que las acuarelas son el mejor de todos para conseguir la transparencia y la luz correcta.
Thank you Arqetancourt. I find that watercolours are the best of all for getting the correct transparency and light.
And Nikira and Alberto – my thanks for taking the time to add your comments. I think, Alberto, that Nikira has inadvertently solved your problem. I usually work my way around scenes, such as this, then concentrate on one particular area – the tree and the rocks in the foreground in this case. I deliberately make/leave the rest, especially stuff in the background, very “hazy” with little or no detail. Seems to work. I think by trying to get just one part as good as I can the rest falls into place. I would say “not ‘easy as pie’ more time consuming” as I went over the tree, in particular, many time until I was reasonably satisfied. Passes the time on a wet winter’s night.