Capturing a sense of character in the land and in the sea – Art for Writers

If you follow this blog, you know I always like to ask the reader to study Beth Fiddes’ composition for lessons in writing description. Notice how she changes the hue of the waves where the light hits from cobalt to an analogous shade of aqua. To create the light, she brightens the tones by mixing white into her colors.

Perhaps more important: Fiddes draws our eye to the canvas with that intersection of light and wave, but she doesn’t paint it dead center. Instead, she shifts it to the top left of the canvas, balancing the effect in the lower right by darkening the colors and using a complimentary red shade (in this case, almost copper).

How would you write this? Perhaps, “A single ray broke through the clouds, catching the crest of a wave and calling to the surface shades of aqua, even turquoise. Far behind it, another beam danced across the waves in counterpoint, brightening the copper and cobalt cast of the storm-driven sea.”

How can you apply these painting techniques to other writing?

BRIDGET WHELAN writer

Looking at this wonderful seascape, I am reminded of the words of American novelist E.L. Doctorow:


“Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader—not the fact that it is raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.”

Good art evokes too.

The painting is the work of a contemporary Scottish artist Beth Robertson Fiddes who is inspired by the natural world. Her own take on the way she works is pretty inspiring too….

 I find more and more now that I want to retain the spontaneity of the initial impressions and sketches in the final pieces…I try to evoke a sense of character in the landscape, to capture the feeling and essence of the landscape on a more intuitive level. I look for unusual structure in landforms and in coastal areas and often try to emphasise their ambiguous qualities.
My work has sometimes been described as having…

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