Landscape Sketching in Pen and Ink

by Donald Maxwell

  It would be interesting to test the soundness of my attempts at different treatment for different subjects. If you have not read this before do not go on reading ahead now but examine the sketch of Dode Church. I hope that the treatment of this subject leaves you a little curious. A funny little building, you say, standing by itself on a track that is certainly not suitable for motoring. It is unimpressive as architecture, therefore you possibly think the artist has drawn it for a purpose. I hope you do think so. If you don't my sketch—in one way at least—is a failure.

  Now Dode Church—plain little hut as it appears—is one of the most interesting things that the romantically inclined rambler can come across. It marks a vanished village, a place literally wiped out by the Black Death. This was a prosperous place in the vineyard country of medieval England in the brave days when Rochester exported wine to France!

  It would be useless to try and express any of this hidden romance by doing a magnificent drawing of this Norman-built village church (fallen into ruin and recently restored), because the building itself is ugly. It has a new roof and does not look at all impressive. The only hope here is to show the position of this lone relic of the lost village at the foot of the once vine-clad slope on a road that has degenerated into a mere track in the woods. You can indeed pass this little church without seeing it in the trees.

  It has been my experience that the way to success in a topographical drawing is found by an enthusiastic interest in your subject. The more you know about the history of a place, the more you are interested in the people who have been there before you, the better you will be able to see its possibilities.

  In this case, when I came upon Dode (which by the way is near Luddesdown, which is near Rochester) I was tracking down the evidences of vineyards in the Middle Ages, and it gave me a peculiar pleasure to note the likeness of this little valley of Dode to many a scene by the banks of the gentle Moselle.

  From "Adventures with a Sketeh-book" (Lane)

  A "FAIRY-TALE TOWN" IN THE BOHEMIAN FOREST

  If an artist can draw at all, the stimulus of such "associative excitement" will prevent him from doing a very bad picture. He is too much in sympathy with every line of the subject to fail entirely in his interpretation.

  From "History with a Sketch-book " (Lane)

  DODE CHURCH

  Not very long before Thomas Hardy died, I was at work on my book Unknown Dorset, and I had the good fortune to have some talks with the great novelist of Wessex on the subject of landscape. The upshot of our pleasant meetings was that I decided— and I could be sure of his goodwill—to compile a work on the topographical atmosphere of the great West Country classics by this author. This was done in The Landscape of Thomas Hardy.

  Thus, I knew the Hardy country well, but when an editor asked me to draw Stinsford Church, the place where the heart of Thomas Hardy was buried, I was somewhat at a loss to make such a subject eloquent of "Under the Greenwood Tree," in which it figures under the disguise of Mellstock. All the photographs and sketches that had been published showed a picturesque old country church that might be almost anywhere.

  I went down to Dorchester and one sunny morning walked to Stinsford by means of a path along by the stream. I was determined to get a good sketch of the church, but it would have to be one also that looked like a place set in woodland country, in fact, under the Greenwood Tree. Without doing any violence to the facts of the case, and by wandering awhile up and down the banks of the many-branched stream, I succeeded in getting a glimpse of the Church framed in trees, as you see here, and a picture that to some extent justified the title "Under the Greenwood Tree, the place where Thomas Hardy's heart lies buried."

  Some two years ago I was asked to lecture to the art students of Gravesend. It was on the occasion of an exhibition of summer sketches and most of the work was of a very high standard. There was a tendency, however, in the case of some sketches to adopt a technical method, in itself good, and then apply it rather indiscriminately to different subjects.

  From "The Landscape of Thomas Hardy" (Cassell)

  STINSFORD

  I took therefore as my theme that it was necessary for all sketchers to be detectives. A Sherlock Holmes or a Dr. Thorndyke, would look at various men and women passing by and tell you in most cases with unerring skill what trades or professions they followed. This was done by knowledge rather than mere observation. The detective knew what to look for. The cobbler, the typist, the motor mechanic, the doctor, the shop-walker—all had marks or mannerisms that showed their calling.

  I took an example in an average landscape and asked a lot of searching questions about it. That wind-blown tree. Why was it full-domed on one side and mean and straight on the other? Because there had once been two trees and one had come down.

  How long ago?

  By the fact that the straight side was well grown and bushy, probably some five or six years ago.

  What is the prevailing wind?

  From "A Detective in Kent" (Lane)

  NORTH STREAM, RECULVER

  From "A Detective in Kent" (Lane)

  EBBSFLEET

  Where lies the sea?

  Was it blown down by accident or cut down for profit ?

  You may not, I said, be able to answer all these questions, but by the time you have asked yourself all these, you will know something about that tree, and you will not be able to draw it unintelligently.

  When I had finished, a gentleman in the audience rose to propose a vote of thanks. There was considerable amusement and not a little applause and cries of "Thorndyke!" Evidently some joke that was lost upon me.

  The plot was soon out. The speaker was Dr. Austin Freeman, the famous creator of Dr. Thorndyke. He warmly commended my use of detective methods in landscape drawing.

  Some time after this I developed the subject and sought to make some scientific study of method in landscape observation and deduction. The result was my book, A Detective in Kent, which has since been followed by A Detective in Sussex.

  In the first of these studies I tried to trace the old coastline of the Wantsum, the waterway that formerly separated Thanet from the mainland of Kent, and the sketch shown on page 88 of the North Stream by Reculver is the last shrunken remnant of a great ship channel. It is now a rural Venice and little bridges cross the waterway and connect the "beach" with the marsh beyond. Keel Farm and Puddledock look across to Belle Isle and thence to Thanet at St. Nicholas at Wade.

  From "More Adventures among Churches" (Faith Press)

  HALLING, ON THE MEDWAY

  From "Unknown Norfolk" (Lane)

  THE YACHT STATION, GREAT YARMOUTH

  The next drawing is from the same book. It is another piece of marsh which was once seashore. Here, over thirteen hundred years ago, a small ship grounded. Out of her came strangers from Rome. They carried with them a silver cross and a picture, and they brought with them a strange story. The history of England took a new direction at this spot, so we must try and make a sketch that looks as if it is no ordinary place. Yet in itself it is a very ordinary piece of landscape, a field and a few trees.

  I do not think as a matter of fact any ordinary presentment of this landscape subject could tell the story in the smallest degree, but some treatments would be better than others.

  A sketch of these trees by themselves would be inadequate. They are like any others in this marsh country. However, by getting such a position that the distant sea-wall cuts across their trunks, and by showing the headland by Ramsgate, some idea of the significance of the marsh will be suggested. A keen eye will readily apprehend that there was once a time when no sea-wall existed, and when the tides made multitudinous channels through this level land.

  Here, too, are three watery landscapes, each attempting to illustrate a particular character of river scenery. The first is of a village in the heart of the Medway country a few miles above Rochester. It lies in the Land of Cement, and this land has to me, and I think to many, a peculiar likeness here and
there to the East. The drift of cement dust falls on everything, and is then fixed by dew and rain so that many buildings are incrusted in a covering of pale honey-coloured material often several inches thick. This blunts the corners of walls, windows and buildings, and gives them the appearance of ancient sun-baked walls, and in sunny lights often gives them an Arabian Nights glamour that is both curious and pleasing. At Halling is a row of old bottle-kilns that might be domes of mosques.

  The second of these river sketches is of the yacht station at Great Yarmouth. This is the main starting place for the yachts and wherries that are to go up and explore the watery world of the broads. The treatment is intended to be an overture to the breezy landscape that is to come, a flat expanse of smooth waters, level plains of green fields, and great skies of marching clouds.

  The third of these subjects, however, is in Langport, which is on the great plain of Sedgmoor, that one-time inland sea of Somerset.

  It is drained now and some of it presents features not unlike those seen in Holland and Flanders.

  The "rhines" and channels intersect the pasture everywhere and there are sluggish waters in Langport, one of which I have drawn here, which might be found in Bruges or Ypres.

  And now for some problems of treatment and interpretation in drawing buildings. Not long ago an editor sent me off to draw some Cathedrals and two of these are contrasted on pages 86 and 87 respectively.

  There are many treatments possible. I chose one that would make Ely look as big and majestic as possible and Southwark as small and homely as possible, for this seemed to me to be the "note" of each as a church. Across the flat land of the Fen, the Cathedral of Ely looks enormous. The tremendous height of it towering into the sky, is the outstanding memory of this great thing.

  From "Unknown Somerset" (Lane)

  IN LANGPORT

  ("Church Times")

  OUR SAVIOUR OF THE MARKET, SOUTHWARK

  ("Church Times")

  ELY

  Now my drawing of it, here seen, is not one that would probably enthuse an architect. It is not particularly good in its detail, and many features, from an architectural draughtsman's point of view, are ill-drawn. It was the best thing I could do in the time, however, and although it lacks much, I think it does express height. This is done by a simple artifice, by keeping the detail work lighter at the top and somewhat heavier and more toned as it comes lower and lower down.

  Southwark, however, could not possibly be made to look overpowering and majestic. It is built in a hidden way in such manner that it can be seen only in bits. It is all mixed up with the Market, which overflows the precincts of St. Saviour's and hems it in with cabbages and sacks.

  But it is a friendly and homely corner of Old Southwark. We have not much time for attending services in the early morning. We are all rushing about with baskets and boxes, but we like to see the buttresses of the old church, through avenues of fruit, and its bells have a restful sound, and our children go to the children's service in the afternoon. To work is to pray, and so we get through a lot of praying outside, and besides, if ever we do have our solemn thoughts about religion, it is to St. Saviour's we turn. And so I thought I would draw it as on page 86, and called the picture "Our Saviour of the Market."

  (Cavendish)

  CRUMMOCK WATER

  ("Church Times")

  GLASTONBURY

  The next two pictures are attempts—I hope in some measure successful—to give an atmosphere of reality to two very different subjects.

  The one in the Lake District owes any merit it has to the exact reflection of the mass of the distant mountain in the water—by its absolute stillness telling of a mountain lake and nothing else— and the other is of Glastonbury, a place of legend and romance.

  All these subjects are such that they can be treated without much tone, but there are others, as the one of Thaxted Church, that demand large surfaces of shading. This is not difficult, but it takes a tremendous time. A series of drawings with as much tone in them as this one would take four or five times as long to work out as those which we have been considering.

  A portion of "Burlingham" grey paper, reproduced the exact size of original. It should be further reduced to size of block on page 94.

  ("Church Times")

  A TRINITY PROCESSION IN THAXTED CHURCH

  In the case of night scenes and effects of looming mist or dark masses of foliage, the problem is well nigh insoluble—except with a great amount of time in hand—and this is the one thing the traveller or press correspondent will not have.

  The temptation to use an ordinary engraver's mechanical tone in places is great. I have seldom tried it in landscape because in large surfaces the effect is mechanical. In the hands of a clever artist there are cases in figure subjects, conventional designs, and architectural pictures where a mechanical tone can be used with good effect, but I have never known a nocturne "come off" successfully with mechanical means.

  I have given an immense amount of time and thought to the problem and I have at last found a means of getting a mechanical tone that does not look mechanical.

  The experiments I made seemed to be endless, but at last I found a granulation of resin that "broke up" by chemical means into a pattern so varied and so rhythmical that it gave an effect of which I had dreamed for years.

  Look at the drawing opposite, a nocturne of Birmingham.

  It is reproduced as an ordinary line drawing, and this block was not made from the original but from a newsapcr print, which shows how successful is the black and white effect without any half-tone screen or other device to break it up. The "mesh" of the black and white is very coarse, about equivalent to a very noticeable screen if it were photographically reproduced, yet it is delicate and mobile because of the immense variety of its texture. It cannot fill up in quick printing like a half-tone block often does, because the white intervals are so large. The pattern never repeats itself, so it does not tire the eye as does any sort of woven mesh that is the same over a large area.

  I venture to think that this invention will be a godsend to harassed sketchers who are working against time on tonal effects that must be produced in the text of a book and therefore in line and set with the type.

  The plate on page 90 shows a fragment of "Burlingham" grey paper produced the exact size of the original. For purposes of reproduction it can be reduced a little as in examples on pages 94 and 95. The reduction most successful is from 4 to 3. Any greater reduction than this might fill up the smaller white flicks, and this would tend to darken and coarsen the tone.

  ("Church Times")

  A NOCTURNE OF BIRMINGHAM

  FIG. 1. "TWILIGHT"

  This is a piece of "Burlingham" grey paper. It appears grey, but is made up of a varied texture of black lines of a very irregular pattern.

  FIG. 2. "TWILIGHT"

  For scenes with much tone in them this grey paper can be used to sketch on in black and white. Here is the first stage of a drawing—a barge sketched in with black ink. Nothing but the barge, its reflection, and the horizon line is indicated.

  FIG. 3. "TWILIGHT"

  The next stage of the sketch is the representation of the darker tones of lower sky, drawn over the grey with a fine pen.

  FIG. 4. "TWILIGHT"

  Now we are putting in the principal lights with a fine brush—Chinese white or process white—and we have added the small steamer which is passing down the river.

  FIG. 5. "TWILIGHT"

  Some cement works show lights on shore, and we indicate these in main masses

  FIG. 6. "TWILIGHT"

  and then tone down these whites and give a little more light and shade to the twilight sky and its reflections in the river. This to an experienced sketcher will all take about ten minutes, but drawn in line on white paper such a picture would take hours.

  There are so many effects of twilight, sunset, and night that take only a few minutes in wash and yet in line are interminable problems. With this paper you have practica
lly a grey tone to work upon and you can draw on it in black ink and chinese white, and get the effect of a wash monochrome.

  Let us imagine that we are in Venice and see a subject which we very much want to do, but alas, we have not much time and a wash drawing will be no good. Our Burlingham grey paper comes to the rescue.

  Remember, I am supposed now to be writing for experienced sketchers. This is no medium of uncertainty and experiment, because you cannot draw in pencil without risking a mess when it comes to rubbing it out. You must put down what you want in clear, decisive strokes. Still more decisive when you come to put in strokes with chinese white, for remember, every mark on the paper must be either full black or full white. Any fumbling with chalky half-tones will be fatal.

  I have reproduced three other examples of this drawing with various uses of this " Burlingham " grey paper. The first of these is a "Nocturne of Birmingham," on page 93. This is a "first edition " of my invention as far as the ground-paper is concerned. It has not got the effect of a "laid" paper that I think is more pleasing. It is without the thin white lines running through it. However, for a dark effect it does very well. The next picture— on page 94—is a twilight subject I sketched in Fiddler's Reach, near Gravesend. This is drawn on the same ground-paper as the "Nocturne of Birmingham," but an engraver's mechanical tone of white lines has been run through the sky and water to lighten the effect.