How to be a cliffhanger

Let me to nerd out about drawing cliffs for a bit

Cliffhangers, you know, people who like to hang around cliffs. And I think I am one. Not that I like to hang off cliffs. I have abseiled on the odd occasion, but unless there is no other way to get somewhere or it is a life or death situation, I don’t feel the need to do that ever again. I’ll include looking down from the top of a cliff to this list. No, I like to hang around at the bottom of a cliff and look up at it. There’s this feeling that you get when you look up at it from the right distance - as if it is also leaning down to take a closer look at you. That feeling that it is about to fall onto you - it mesmerises me, and then I just have to draw it. I can probably say that I feel drawn to it. (Pun intended.)

Why do I do this to myself? Drawing cliffs are hard. They are flat and upright and really hard to depict. There are all these crags and capturing the scale is next to impossible. But drawing helps you to remember the feeling you had at that moment, and I guess that that is what I want to do in my pursuit of drawing them.

So, I have for you here today, four different cliff faces that have mesmerised me into drawing them. Without planning it ahead of time I happened to have drawn all of them with my neocolor 2 crayons, which is one of my favourite mediums for drawing open spaces like fields, dunes and lakes.

We took the cog train up from Wolfgangsee (Austria) to the top of the Schafberg, where we had the most amazing views, this cliff face being one of them. It is the first cliff face that I attempted to draw, and I remember feeling very much out of my depth.

This cliff face was drawn from a lookout point in Hinterstoder (Austria). We first took a cable car, then a ski lift, and then did a bit of hiking to get this high up. Once again the views were amazing, but I felt drawn to draw this cliff face.

The following two drawings were made in a totally different part of the world, on the northern coast of France, and almost two years after the previous drawings.

The tide was just starting to come in as I quickly opened up my folding chair and got my sketching gear out. As you can probably see in the wild marks I made, I had to draw super fast. And then the ocean decided for me when I should stop with the drawing. So I grabbed my backpack, sketchbook and chair and ran, just as the next wave creeped up on the spot where I was just sitting.

Doing the previous drawing gave me so much energy, that I decided to go for a short hike to the top of the cliffs. The tide had come in all the way to the cliff face and the wind was blowing something fierce. This strip of green next to the sheer drop of the cliff caught my attention, so I captured it in my sketchbook, sitting a couple of meters from the edge. (The wind was so strong that there were moments where I was scared that it would just take my sketchbook and drop it in the ocean.)

I get such fond memories looking at these drawings, that I feel the need to stop writing to go and find something to draw. Do you have any specific things or subjects that you always feel drawn to draw? Things that get you all lyrical and give you the need to express yourself in some creative manner be it drawing, writing, making music or something else? Do tell us about it and let’s continue this conversation in the comments.

A sneaky photo that my talented photographer sister-in-law took of me while I was drawing the cliff. (The one where I had to grab my backpack and chair and run for dry ground.)

In other news

• My new website is live! (At last.) While we’re still working on the for sale painting section, you can already browse through my sketchbooks.

• A special thank you shout out to

  Laura Frank
  for my new pencil turned posca that I can now use to sign my paintings with!

• In April we had another National Sketch Day, hosted by Urban Sketchers Netherlands. Typical for April we had all four seasons on that day. It was jackets on, jackets off; raincoats on and off and always wind. Sun, clouds, grey skies, we had it all. I had the honour of teaching a workshop on Speed Sketching with Watercolour Pencils, which happened to be the perfect workshop for the weather. Yes, we did run for cover at some point during the workshop, and we all have proof of the rain in our drawings. My group of participants were the absolute best and did not get frightened off by anything the skies threw at us. They made wonderful (and fast) drawings. Many of them realising that they even prefer their 5 minute sketches to the ones that took much longer. Overall a big success.

Me doing a live demo during the workshop, the sketch from the demo and everyone with their sketches at the end.

Back to cliffs and cliffhangers

To answer this post’s title - How to be a cliffhanger… It’s quite straight forward. Find a good looking cliff. Look up at it until you get that falling feeling. Then get your sketchbook out and draw it. Once you have done that you can call yourself a cliffhanger.

May you find that perfect cliff to draw.

Until next time,

Nino