Louie Luton Demonstration

LOUISE LUTON DEMONSTRATION

Louise was a teacher for 20 years before becoming a very successful professional artist. Her demonstration for the evening was in oils but she will change her medium to suit the subject and uses a sketchbook for plein air work.

As a base, linen is coated with a clear gesso primer which means that the natural colour of the linen is retained. An alternative is PVA.

Louise's first subject was a Hare. The base coat is a very dilute mix of Raw umber with either Violet or Ultramarine. Her references are usually a watercolour sketch or her own photograph.

After painting a rough outline Louise started putting in dark areas in Black/Purple using the side of a half inch flat brush. Then Coral and Kings Blue were painted on the shoulders, nose and ears  and white added where appropriate. Colours can be harmonised by using one colour throughout or by overall glazing with one colour. Titanium white was used for this work but Zinc white or Flake white are used for portraits as they are not so harsh. Titanium white can also be toned down with Naples Yellow. The colours are blended in at the edges with a soft brush.

Eyes were then painted by putting a thin layer of blue on the edge of the brown which was then reinforced with white for the highlight.

 Pink was added to the nose.

 Whiskers were painted onto a dry surface with a rigger brush in strong sweeping movements in white with a few dark ones added. Where the whiskers meet the face dots were added very lightly with a flat brush. Eyelashes and eyebrows were painted in the same way.

Finally a "bit of flick" with all the colours was put in using a no. 3 rigger brush tapped on the side with the index finger to give a line of dots. 

The second part of the evening was taken up with a sky painting.

Magenta and Titanium White forms a good base coat for skies. The top part of the sky was painted with Ultramarine and with Cerulean near the horizon each mixed with Titanium White. The colours were blended vertically and then the horizon smoothed off.

Naples yellow and Purple form a good cloud colour. This is painted and blended in using a dabbing motion. Then Naples Yellow and Titanium White added to form highlights.

To form a sun the blue at the horizon is scrubbed out and Naples yellow blended with Titanium White painted in as a highlight.

Streaks of Titanium White blended in very lightly will produce Cirrus clouds.

 

By the end of the evening we all thought we had learnt much from a new approach to colour matching and harmonising to many new and different techniques. An excellent evening - thank you, Louise!