New Work: The Lonely Mountain

Figure 1, Katherine Olive, The Lonely Mountain, 2014, 56.5cm (w) x 38cm (h), watercolours, ink pens

My illustrationThe Lonely Mountain (figure 1), from Peter Jackson’s movie; The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, was created using watercolours and ink pens. The watercolours form basic shapes, which make up the shadows of the mountain, hills, and lake below. The watercolours were used to make thick blotches of colour, and smaller thinner marks for some details on the mountain. The highlights of the mountain, where the sun shines, are not painted, or is very lightly covered with colour. The details of the mountain and hills below are made with ink pens, which form vertical hatchings. These marks cover and darken the shadows and some mid tones on the mountain. The colour palette is minimalistic; it contains Paynes Grey, violet, yellow and some lighter blues. The grey is used all over the illustration, while violet is used in the clouds, and lighter blues in the mountains further away from the Lonely Mountain. There is a pale yellow placed where the sun hits the hills on the right of the illustration. The paper is very thick and very sturdy. The size of the illustration is 56.5cm (w) x 38cm (h).

Figure 2, The Lonely Mountain, Screenshot of The Hobbit: The desolation of Smaug by Peter Jackson, taken from JJR Tolkien’s The Hobbit.

In The Lonely Mountain I wanted to explore the Shan Shui way of exploring nature through art, in regards to the way they see painting mountains and water (figure 3). One way I have done this is, by using the watercolours in an un-calculated way, therefore each water coloured shape is only an approximate of the shapes in the real image. In contrast to the uncertainty of the watercolours, I have used the hatching marks to bring structure to the details of the mountain. 

Figure 3, Xia Gui, Clear View over Mountains & Streams, Southern Song Period, 1127 - 1234, hand scroll, http://www.oberlin.edu/images/Art250b/Art250new.html

Artists such as Albrecht Durer and Michelangelo Buonarroti used hatching marks in their figure studies. Though they used these marks differently, I have applied similar techniques in my own work, The Lonely Mountain. In the course of studying hatching marks and the forms of mountains, I have found the vertical hatching marks to be best for illustrating mountains and hills. The colour palette I chose is minimalistic, because I wanted to focus on studying the mountain. The grey is used all over the illustration, to create some cohesion. In addition, I used Paynes Grey because I feel confident with the colour’s texture and control. 

I used the violet in the clouds to bring them closer, and lighter blues to send the forms backwards. The use of colours, in this way, forms a deeper depth of field. The depth of field made by the colours in The Lonely Mountain was added with the guidance of Ron McBurnie, an artist who also works with hatching and watercolours. Ron McBurnie also aided me in choosing the right paper to work with. I find it thick enough to make mistakes and have the freedom to take the mistakes off the paper with sufficient scratching. I cut the paper to the appropriate size, because I thought it would be enough to challenge myself and my techniques. ◼︎