International Sketchcrawl - Great Comp Garden, Kent

Great Comp Garden
pen and sepia ink and coloured pencil in Moleskine sketchbook
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

Minded to produce another sketch for the Gardens in Art project I'm doing on Making A Mark this month, I did a quick sketch of a view of part of the garden at Great Comp in Kent which we visited yesterday. This is late afternoon on a very sunny warm day (which we've had far too few of this summer) and I rather liked the contrast with the shadows and the lighting on the lawn and in the beds of heather beds either side.

This is my contribution to yesterday's International Sketchcrawl. I've not been well just recently and walking has been difficult, so I couldn't contemplate the normal sort of activities associated with a sketchcrawl. I even had to change shoes to get round this garden!

Tip - correcting colour in photos

I took a photo of the pen and ink sketch so you could see how I sketch in pen and ink and how much I do before I started adding coloured pencil.

However, I was sat in a very shady spot and, on the left above, is what my photo came out looking like. On the right is what it looked like after I'd wrestled with it in Photoshop. (Click on either/both to see larger versions).

To lose the blue colour cast I didn't use the colour cast function. Instead I used the Levels function to adjust each of the Red, Green and Blue settings individually (basically pulling in the ends - whatever that's called) and then I upped the brightness and contrast. It took a few goes but suddenly it came together. I'm very much of the opinion that it's well worthwhile getting to grips with the Levels function and Lighting generally in PS. Ever since I've started focusing on using Levels, I've found that I've got much better results with removing colour casts and getting much more natural colour from photos - although stay away from Auto Levels as it produces very odd results.

Apologies

Apologies to regular readers - I've been neglecting this blog in the last month and need to set to and do quite a few 'backlog' posts as a catch up.

Links:

• Great Comp Garden, Comp Lane, Platt, Kent TN15 8QS
• International Sketchcrawl