electronic Arts Magazine - Reviews
Ariana Clarke
Windle - Art Club Demonstration
In April 2003, Ariana Clarke Windle demonstrated the
techniques she uses to capture the landscape in her pastel paintings. Ariana
used Unison soft pastels for the demonstration. Ariana explained that hard
pastels, such as Conte, are good for detailed work or for applying glazes over
the top of other colours, while softer pastels leave more pigment on the
support leading to more vibrant colours. Unison pastels were developed by
British artist John Hersey, who worked out his unique colour formulations over
a decade of experimentation, creating intense, vibrant colours, blended almost
exclusively from pure pigment and water. Hersey says "In our hand-made
process, the pigment hardly gets pressed at all. The sticks are rolled lightly.
It makes them very fluent when you use them. Like soft charcoal."
Having made a preliminary
sketch of the composition, Ariana started by blocking in the sky using the side
of a mauve pastel stick. She then worked over this in off-white. To rub or
not to rub, that is the question... One of the reasons people enjoy working
with pastels is because they are a very tactile medium. Its hard to resist the
temptation to work the surface of the picture with your fingers. Ariana warned
that this always results in a darkening of the colour, and a loss of detail.
However, you can compensate for this by working over the rubbed area with more
fresh colour. Ariana decided to rub the sky, especially near the horizon.
An alternative approach to rubbing is to use the next layer of colour to
blend the previous one underneath. Colour shapers, with their fine silicon
rubber tips, can also be used to blend colours, while preserving detail. Ariana
used this approach on the distant hills. In a landscape its important to reduce
the amount of detail in the far distance. Blending different areas of a pastel
painting can help to modify textures and unify the picture.
When a pastel painting is complete, Ariana avoids the use of fixatives, as
these can modify the painting. Instead she recommends starting with a support
that has plenty of tooth, so that it takes more pigment. When the painting is
finished shake off any dust. Then lay the painting down & cover with a
sheet of parchment paper. Then cover with a wad of newspaper, and press very
firmly all over the surface with your hands. This pushes the pigment into the
paper to stabilise it. Pastel paintings should always be framed under glass,
with a mount or spacer so that the glass is not in contact with the painting.
If you've tried pastel painting you'll know that it gets everywhere! Ariana
recommends applying barrier cream to your hands before you start, and using
baby wipes to clean your hands afterwards.
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Mike Skidmore - Art Club Demonstration
In March 2003, Mike Skidmore gave a fascinating demonstration of
portrait painting in oils. Mike opened by giving us a personal insight as to
how he managed to become a successful professional artist despite having his
confidence undermined for years at Art School. With three separate
demonstrations over the course of the evening, he went on show us some very
simple techniques for achieving an effective chiaroscuro approach to portrait
painting. Mike explained that thin glazes of dark colour are used to make the
background recede giving depth, while thinker, lighter, impasto paint is used
to bring forward the highlights on the subject. He mixes Paynes Grey (cool) and
Burnt Umber (warm) to produce a shadow background colour. The shadow colour is
mixed with his own medium, to produce a glaze.
1. Vase. Mike started with a simple, flat looking painting of a
ceramic vase. He then covered the board with his shadow glaze, completely
obscuring the vase. Working outwards from the centre of the vase, in a spiral
motion, he used a rag to gradually remove less and less glaze to reveal the
vase underneath. This immediately gave the effect of the centre of the vase
curving out of the canvas from the shadows around it. He worked up all the
highlighted areas of the vase like this, and finished by applying some dabs of
white paint to the high points. He used a fan brush to blend the surface of the
paint throughout.
2. Tonal Portrait. Mike began by
stressing the importance of picking up on the most memorable features, and
typical pose, of your sitter. He then explained how he had previously spent
some time making an accurate, detailed, drawing of the sitter with a 2B pencil
onto his canvas. He had then sealed the drawing with a thin wash of white
acrylic paint. This would enable him to rework the painting, without losing the
integrity of the drawing underneath. He began again by painting the whole
surface with his shadow glaze. Using a rag, he wiped away the glaze to reveal
the highlights and contours of the face. Mike says that this approach allows
him to explore and learn about the face. He explained that normally he would
allow the glaze to dry before repeating this process, perhaps six or seven
times. It is the successive layers of glaze that really give depth to the
painting.
3. Colour Portrait. Once the tonal portrait is complete, colour can
be added. Mike suggested that when working from photos you should keep them at
a distance, so that they just give you an impression of the subject. Black and
white photos help you to focus on the tonal values, without the confusion of
colour. Mix a skin tone & rub it on your hand to see if it sits naturally
against real skin. Keep it simple by always mixing the same skin tones. You can
apply an overall tint at the end to adapt the skin tone to your sitter. Mike
recommends starting with a tube of flesh tint, and adding yellow ochre and
cadmium red or alizarin crimson to suit. Having got the basic skin tone right,
produce a range of tints and shades from it by adding white or Paynes Grey or
Burnt Umber. Apply the colour neat, without any medium. Load the brush and work
the paint thinly over the surface. Try not to obscure the tonal underpainting.
Be aware of how the sitter's skin interacts with their surroundings. Dark skin
tends to reflect colour, while light skin tends to absorb it. Mike recommends
avoiding painting too much detail, especially around the eyes. Having laid in
the colours, the surface of the paint can be blended with a fan brush.
- Mike Skidmore's Painting Medium Recipe
- 4 parts turpentine
- 2 parts linseed oil
- 2 or 3 parts dammar varnish
- 1 part venetian turpentine
You can see some examples of Mike's work by clicking on this link to his web
site at www.skids.f9.co.uk. You see a review of a similar
demonstration that Mike gave to The Frimley & Camberley Society of Arts by
clicking on this link to their web site at
www.fcsaonline.org.uk.Top
Chris Jones - Art Club Demonstration
In May 2002, Wildlife Artist
Chris Jones
gave a fascinating demonstration of his work. Chris began with a slide show,
tracing his personal development through his formal training as a natural
history illustrator, to his passionate commitment to wildlife art. He showed
examples of his work made from wildlife studies on location in Borneo, Africa
and India. In 1998, Chris was named International Young Artist of the
Year.
For the rest of the evening,
Chris demonstrated his techniques by developing a work in progress. One of
Chris's objectives is to bring wildlife painting up to date, for the 21st
century. In his oil portrait of a Tawny Owl he has achieved this firstly by
including a semi-abstract background, and secondly by building an embossed
support, by painting onto a rectangle of bevelled mount board, fixed to a
larger MDF backing piece. Chris worked with a limited palette, applying thin
layers of oil paint using synthetic watercolour brushes. He reckons on wearing
out four or five brushes on each painting! Chris tends to work round a painting
in regions, beginning in each with the mid tones, to establish the structure of
the subject, then working toward the lights and darks to develop the modelling
of the shapes. At each stage he repeatedly blends the colours, to give more
naturalistic colours and soften the textures, before redefining the shapes at
the next stage. As the picture develops, he tends to pick out some shapes by
outlining them in a warm colour, such as Burnt Sienna, to throw them forward, or
in a cool blue or cream, to knock them back. This helps to add depth and focus.
Having covered all the regions of the painting, he then works across the whole
support to tie the final image together.
Bryan Thatcher - Art Club
Demonstration
In April 2002,
Bryan
Thatcher, the renowned "wet-into-wet" artist, gave a riveting
demonstration of his mastery of atmospheric watercolour landscapes. Bryan
painted on 300lb ½ Imperial papers, which are heavy enough to take wet
into wet unstretched. Bryan worked from a limited palette, including Cobalt,
Ultramarine, Light Red, Burnt Sienna, Naples Yellow, and his favourite, Madder
Brown. This gave his paintings a pleasing unity. Bryan painted three
landscapes, of increasing complexity, and generously donated his final piece,
which was raffled by the Art Club that evening, to raise funds towards future
Art Club events.
