Spring Landscape Drawings and Watercolour Paintings by Sophie Peanut

View from the top floor window - Spring Drawing by Sophie Peanut — The view from our top floor window. I have painted this many times before but I never tire of it as it changes all the time. Nature is never still!

Capture energy in Spring landscape drawings

The Yorkshire countryside landscape is beautiful in Spring and I love walking the hills. Sadly I broke my ankle on Easter Sunday, and I haven’t been out much this year. I still managed a few Spring landscape drawings from my windows and in the nearby park.

I find Spring fascinating to sketch as you can almost feel the trees and flowers grow and it is always a great challenge to try and capture nature’s energy at this time of the year.

Spring drawing of Trees by Sophie Peanut — Here is a Spring drawing of trees in pen. I focussed on the texture of the trunks. Because the drawing is in black and white, it has a more wintery feel though!

Painting greens in watercolours

It is hard to get the feeling of Spring without colour and most of my sketches were done in watercolour – apart from the one above where I forgot to take a water brush with me. But there’s a catch – most of the landscape is GREEN (surprise!) and it is easy to end up with a big green mess.

To avoid this I try to abstract shapes and observe all the different variations of greens: blue-green, yellow-green, brown-green and so on. After a first light wash, I come back and add the darker areas and some texture marks.

I am not always happy with the results and I do sometimes end up with overworked sketches… All the more reasons to keep trying!

Spring watercolour sketch - Teenagers in the park Sophie Peanut — Teenagers sheltering from a light shower – on an overcast day.

Spring trees painting in watercolour by Sophie Peanut — Just watercolour for this sketch of trees. Maybe I would have had better results using a proper brush rather than a water brush.

Spring Landscape drawings - Spring trees sketch in watercolour and Inktense pencils by Sophie Peanut — I painted this view in Autumn, so I thought it would be good to revisit it in Spring. This sketch was made in my tiny pocket Moleskine sketchbook.

Sketching Spring flowers

Flower are perfect to get away from all-green Spring Landscape drawings, therefore I couldn’t resist the rhododendrons in the park and their glorious exuberance. Most of all it was the perfect opportunity to let loose with colour.

I look forward to some summer sketching. Now my ankle is healing so I should be able to venture further afield again!