Thanks to various disruptions, I’m taking a while to get to the end of my battle with the poachers page but here we as the poacher runs off and Waterton warns him ‘You will NOT touch the birds in MY park!’
Needless to say, the poacher protests that this is a waste because it’s great game.
Working from my rough I tried having Squire Waterton in the foreground but it’s awkward to have him looking into the picture and to see the expression on his face. Why not, I thought, try and convey the Squire’s resolute mood in his body language?
At first I tried having him springing into action but this threw him off balance. In fact he looks like John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever!
How about having him stand his ground. I thought of boxers at a weigh in, trying to look rock solid.
I’m not happy with my first attempts at shading for this night scene but we’ll have to see what it looks like when I add the watercolour. Once again, it’s the lively little sketch of the standing figure that appeals to me more than the laboured shaded version.
I might end up using watercolour only rather than inked and hatched shadows.