Who is writing this
About Umber Path
Umber Path is an independent online publication about landscape sketching and watercolour for beginners, written in English for readers in the UK. It covers the practical end of the subject: what to carry, how paper behaves, how colours mix, how to arrange a view, and where you can sit down to paint it.
The name comes from raw umber, a natural earth pigment and one of the plainest browns in the box, and from the idea of a walk with a few stops along the way. Most of the colours in a British landscape end up with a little earth in them, and so does this site.
How we work
Articles are written by the editors, or by guest contributors under the terms on our write for us page. We do not claim awards, a large audience or decades in the trade. Practical tips here are craft advice, offered for you to test, and your own materials may behave differently.
Where a piece relies on a fact (a rule on land access, a paper specification, how light scatters), we link to the page we took it from, and we prefer official bodies, museums and makers' own documents. Maker pages are cited for information about materials, and are not endorsements. Rules change, so check the linked source before relying on anything that matters to you. If you spot an error, please tell us.
Some contributed articles may be published as guest posts, and any commercial relationship will be disclosed on the article.
Picture credits
The paintings and drawings on this site are out of copyright or released under CC0, and all come via Wikimedia Commons. Credit is given beneath each image as well as here. Heroes are cropped to fit. Diagrams, swatches and the logo are original to this site, and their colours are on-screen approximations of paint.
- John Sell Cotman, Greta Bridge, 1805, British Museum. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
- J. M. W. Turner, The Channel Sketchbook, c. 1845. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
- Thomas Girtin, The Village of Kirkstall, Yorkshire, 1801. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
- David Cox the Younger, The River Bed, 19th century, Birmingham Museum. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
- William Pars, A Glade in a Wood, Yale Center for British Art. CC0, via Wikimedia Commons.
- Francis Towne, Exeter from Exwick, 1787, Royal Albert Memorial Museum. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
- Paul Sandby Munn, A Cornfield, 1823, Yale Center for British Art. CC0, via Wikimedia Commons.
- Paul Sandby Munn, View of Side Farm, Patterdale, 1802, Yale Center for British Art. CC0, via Wikimedia Commons.
- Edward Lear, Lago di Como, Brienno?, 1867, Yale Center for British Art. CC0, via Wikimedia Commons.
- Thomas Girtin, Kirkstall Abbey, Yorkshire, c. 1801. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
_-_The_River_Bed.jpg){kind=link}
