Tag Archives: canvas

New year, new palette

Finally I’ve crawled out from under that duvet! Been a while though hasn’t it? Well, after a very emotionally charged and challenging year I did promise myself a break. Problem is it now feels like I’ve been asleep pretty much through the whole of Christmas and New Year…

Christmas Narcissi
Christmas Narcissi

In truth, I haven’t been completely idle. I did a half-hearted acrylic sketch some gorgeous Narcissi from the Isles of Scilly. It coincided with #stilldecember on Twitter so at least I had one contribution to make.

Testing the New Wave ‘Easy Lift’ palette

Cleaned palette
Cleaned palette with light scuffs
Gentle scrubbing
Gentle scrubbing to remove remaining paint
Using card to scrape
Scraping paint away with thin card
Peeling off lumps
Peeling off lumps
Dried paint
Solid dry paint

For a while I’d been meaning to test the New Wave ‘Easy Lift’ plastic palette, and the festive break seemed the ideal time. This is designed with acrylics in mind although at first I was fairly sceptical. I like to work off a clean palette, but all previous plastic palettes I’ve owned have become caked very quickly with immovable dried paint. Determined to give this a tough trial, I let the paint dry on it for a week before trying to clean it.  Have to say I was very impressed with the result. You can read my full review here on Jackson’s Blog.

I also tried out their ‘Grey Pad’, a large disposable palette comprising mid-grey sheets rather than the usual white to help with tonal judgement. To be honest I found it’s most useful attribute was its larger size. Its very generous dimensions allow lots of room for mixing. The grey tint is an interesting idea, but for me it needs to slightly darker. Other than that in use it functions no better or worse than similar disposables.

And two new acrylic paintings

Snowy Lane at Northycote
Snowy Lane at Northycote
Reference photo
Reference photo

And while I was testing the palettes I did stray from my original intention not to be creative and accidentally squeezed out a couple of new acrylic paintings.  The first, on 14″ by 10″ canvas board, was inspired by an old photo of a snowy lane at Northycote Farm and Country Park. I was careful not to be too influenced by the photo. Like many snaps of snow it was fairly flat, blue and bland. You’ll see that I spiced it up a little with a new wintry sky and some warmer reflections. I’m pleased to say that this sold very quickly at its first public airing last week.

Towards Golden Cap - Autumn
Towards Golden Cap – Autumn

My second painting is on a 20cm by 40cm linen canvas. I’d had this hanging round for a couple of months. So I dug out my Devon and Dorset sketch book and chose a misty, autumnal view of Golden Cap looking east down the beach from Charmouth. Although I also had a photo I didn’t refer to it, taking all my information from my watercolour sketch. Without the photo I felt a lot more freedom to ‘make things up’. I’m sure I’ve remodelled the cliffs but, shhh, don’t tell anybody! This will be available for sale shortly, unframed, through my Twitter feed, but if you are interested do email me. For the moment I only ship to UK addresses.

So my New Year has started well, hope yours has too.

 

 

Acrylic portrait of Ben almost complete

So, #portraitnovember the Twitter challenge has wrapped up for another year.  And my approach, to concentrate on completing a single acrylic portrait through the month, almost worked. Almost.

Inevitably the constraints arising from choosing to paint the portrait in my workplace have played their part. Ben has been a very willing sitter, but with both of us leading very busy work lives finding time when we’ve both been free has proved tricky.

We have managed to grab 30 to 45 minutes during our lunch breaks a couple of times each week which has added up to around four and a half hours painting time. Mind you, some of this has been absorbed by chatting to interested passers-by…

The amount of positive interest has taken me aback a little.  It can’t be often you see someone painting at an easel in a professional, corporate environment, and I did wonder whether I might attract any negative views. But I was wrong; everyone has been very supportive and encouraging.

Ben 04 acrylic portrait
More work around shirt and jacket
Ben 05 acrylic portrait
Refining the eyes and specs

The last couple of sittings have seen small refinements around the eyes and specs with a little work to define the shirt and jacket. I’m keen not to overwork the outlying areas so as to maintain focus on the face. I really don’t want to over finish it, I’m keen that it should remain loose. Another couple of sessions should see it off, and I may make any final tweaks at home when I’m not quite so wired! I may glaze over the background to even out the tonal changes a little.

My palette throughout has been my standard mix of warm and cool: Raw Umber, Burnt Umber, Alizarin Crimson, Quinacridone Red, Cadmium Yellow, Hansa Yellow, Cobalt Blue, Ultramarine blue, Titanium White ad Mixing White. Mostly Liquitex heavy body acrylics with a few Winsor and Newton Artist’s acrylics.

I recently bought a luscious looking Liquitex Van Dyke Red which may get a look in, but I’ll proceed with caution. Chucking new colours into an existing mix is not always beneficial.

Be sure to pop back is a week or two when the portrait should be finished.

Ben’s Portrait after ninety minutes

For all my apprehension at creating a portrait of one of my colleagues, Ben, in a series of short, live and public sittings I have to say I’m really enjoying myself.

Frankly there was always much which might have conspired to derail the process. Not least I expected my decision to try and paint at my workplace to raise a few quizzical eyebrows.  From the point of view of our facilities management team mine must have counted as one of the oddest requests they’ve received. And I’d no idea what my managers and colleagues might think…

I have to say that so far my efforts have been met with nothing but interest, and I’ve had some very lovely comments from all quarters. So far, so good. Everyone has been so gracious and accepting of this lunatic who brought his paints and easel to work. Far from being off putting, I’ve found the attention has been very encouraging, spurring me on to give of my best.

Even switching rapidly from my ‘work’ head to my ‘painting’ head hasn’t been as problematic as I thought it might. The shortness of time available to me during breaks is forcing me to make rapid decisions and I’m making sure that every minute available for painting counts.

Ben-underpainting
Under-painting complete in 40 mins

Our first session was about 40 minutes of painting time (I’m not including any prep and clean up time). I wanted to complete a tonal under-painting as quickly as possible so over an initial red chalk drawing I used a 1″ brush and Burnt Umber darkened with Mars Black or lightened with Titanium White. Ben sat against a neutral coloured blind with a very strong, sunlit, backlight shining through.

Ben-background-under-painting
Background under-painting

The second session was completed in 20 minutes without Ben present. I wanted to establish the under-painting for the background. I chose to work this in a pale violet to act as a compliment for what is likely to be a cool yellow ochre final colour.

First colour on Bens portrait
Broad colour applied

Then, darkness… On the third session the clouds and rain rolled in, and the wonderful light we once had was sucked into a growing grey grimness. With a yellowy artificial light coming from many directions, I relied on both observation and memory to inform where I should lay the first colour blocks. I’ve mostly used Liquitex Heavy Body acrylics supplemented with a few Winsor and Newton Artists acrylics. For speed I worked with colour straight from the tube without any added medium  other than a wee spot of plain water to increase fluidity.

I particularly relish the cool mixes arising from the cobalt blue and yellow ochre. Lighter tints were made by adding a combination of Mixing White and Titanium White. Titanium White on its own can be very harsh, I like the softer effect of adding Mixing White. A single half inch flat brush was used throughout.

While progress on this session was rapid, about 25 to 30 minutes, I can already see I’m actively avoiding three areas: the eyes, mouth and nose. Got to get a grip on these next time while also working more broadly across the rest of the painting. More sessions are planned for next week when I’ll try and bring the weaker areas up to scratch. Watch this space.

What the fox? A Sir Gawain painting without Sir Gawain?

Since starting my Sir Gawain series, things have slowed a little.  Other things have either needed attention (real life things) or wanted attention (fun things which have distracted me).  OK, more of the latter if I’m honest…  However, I have continued work on a related, but separate, acrylic painting by way of a ‘dry run’ based on this quick sketch:

Gawains wildwood journey
Gawain’s wildwood journey

I’m becoming more familiar with acrylics now. Following some rubbish acrylic experiences several years ago, (most down to operator error and poor quality pigments), they’ve only recently found a proper place in my tool kit.

And I’m finding their properties better suit my temperament (ever impatient…) that I’m starting to use them as a default where once I’d have picked up alkyds or oils.  I can work quickly, and their fast drying means I can apply repeated glazes in a single sitting.  The bonus too is that they clean up easily without solvents.

There are downsides though.  A lot of paint gets wasted as it inevitably cures on the palette, and I’m finding fine blending is trickier than when using oils. I’ve tried the slow-dry gels, but for me the paint texture seems to become oddly ‘tacky’.

Originally I started using Winsor and Newton Artists acrylics, but after making comparisons with Liquitex Heavy Body acrylics I think I may switch to Liquitex for most colours. They’re generally more economical and in my opinion compare favourably with the W&N offering in terms of viscosity, texture, ‘open’ time and stability of colour/tonal shift from wet to dry.

So here’s another ‘in-progress’ shot.  There’s a long way to go, and the photo really doesn’t reproduce any of the subtle colour shifts going on in the shadows (click a couple of times to enlarge):

Acrylic painting Sir Gawain's wildwood journey progress
Sir Gawain’s wildwood journey progress

The eponymous Sir Gawain is nowhere in sight, but that’s OK, but the inspiration from the poem is in there.

I’ve introduced a warmer sky to increase both the tonal and temperature contrast when compared to the deep, dark, cool shadows. The gold and red also mirrors the colours associated with Gawain.

The wild-wood setting echoes the bleakness of his journey while the fox, so slyly skulking in the seeping shadows, foretells of Gawain’s deception later in the story.

I hope I’ve started to capture an underlying feeling of unease here, but what do you think?