J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

This sketch has been executed in pencil, watercolour and brown ink on white wove paper. Dense washes of watercolour are used in this image. The clouds have been created by allowing blank patches of the white paper to show up against blue washes applied to dry paper to give a hard outline to the patches of blue sky. The green of the trees is actually an application of blue wash with a yellow wash on top of it. The shading of the trees, trunks and grasses has been applied in crude streaks. Pigments used include vermilion and ochre. Loss of the yellow pigment mixed and layered green tones in the foreground accounts for the bluish appearance of the leaves here. The distant hills, painted in a more blue-rich mixture, have probably not changed colour.

Perhaps one of Turner’s projected ‘12 views on the River Avon.’ See the introductory note to the Bristol and Malmesbury sketchbook (Tate; Turner Bequest VI); and compare the drawing in it (Tate D00107; Turner Bequest VI 24) for similar treatment and palette.