We always look to the bend in a river don’t we? as far as we can see, then wonder what’s around the corner…is it a stunning view unseen by the appreciative eye? are there exotic birds taking flight and impossibly large fish disappearing into the gloomy depths with a silver flash? does it all suddenly just end?

I have made sketches around my local patch in Essex of a few such views. The two below were drawn at either end of the summer in 2009, in May and again in September. Both times the sun had long gone, the sky was duck egg blue merging into butter yellow with
a hint of coral pink here and there, reflected perfectly, save for the odd ripple to tell you the nature of the glass-like surface hiding its depths. The darkness is creeping in, rendering all vegetation shades of green-black and blue-grey, and the bats fly in and out of the space only seen in silhouette.

The sketch on the left was made in May with a graphite stick and a little coloured pencil to remind me of the sky’s reflection. The drawing on the right is later, in September, and drawn in conte crayon. Both were drawn from a small bridge over the river at dusk.

I made a coloured conte drawing on blue tinted paper to explore the colours of the muted greens and blue shadows. The water surface is smooth apart from a ripple or a floating twig here or there, and I added the wake of a moorhen moving into the dark bankside cover out of sight, or could it have been a water vole, or even an otter?

I often find myself wanting to “fill in the gaps” with studio renderings and never quite feel I have enough information. This then drives me outdoors again, with the desire to finish something there and then in front of the subject, to say all I want to say in as fresh and spontaneous a way as possible, and then leave it alone!

I have gone back to the original sketches again for this new ink drawing, where the picture has gone in a direction of its own only partly controlled by me, and ended up more moonlight than dusk. It’s maybe not the fresh, vibrant splash (no pun intended)
of blackness that I intended, but does convey a certain mood. The reflected sky hints at deep water, the disturbed surface still says “shy creature escapes attention” and the volumes of lush waterside vegetation and balmy summer night atmosphere come across ok, so not a total disaster. There will be another version to add to this post later.