Demonstration by Joanna Rose Tidey
The evening started with Kate thanking everyone for their
contribution in making the Exhibition such a success either in producing
paintings or with the "backroom work."
Di Alexander and
Claire Palmer were then officially presented with the Reg Whiting Trophy for
their "Best in Exhibition " paintings. (see earlier blog). They will
share the trophy for 6 months each.
Kate then introduced Jo as our Demonstrator for the evening.
Her subject was a pair of otters which she had become very fond of during her
work as Artist in Residence at the New
Forest Wildlife Park at Longdown.
While she was working she entertained us with accounts of
her time at University and her career so far in becoming a professional artist.
She also told us stories of her experiences in the art world interspersed with
philosophical reflections on art.
She usually uses
watercolour paper and draws first from photographs of the animals which she has
taken herself.
Drawing animals from
life is difficult as they move so quickly but she advises starting on small
sketches and then with more experience and practice get larger and more
detailed.
Her paints are a
mixture of tubes and pans - tubes give
deep colours and pans are good for washes.
After drawing the
outline of the otters and putting in ears, eyes and whiskers she wet the paper
and then, when it was almost dry, dropped in colours. This was done with a
fully loaded brush held horizontally. The colours were Cadmium Yellow, Alizarin
Crimson, Ultramarine and Turquoise. After allowing the paper to dry she
carefully added black for the eyes, ears and muzzle.
To paint the
foreground Turquoise, Lemon Yellow and Ultramarine were spattered into wet
paper. She uses a liner brush to represent wet fur and doesn't usually put in a
background for watercolours, only for acrylics.
To finish the
evening Jo showed us how she adds touches of gold leaf to her paintings. Size
is painted on in appropriate places and allowed to dry - usually for 10
minutes. The gold leaf is then brushed on using a mop brush - the gold sticking
to the sized areas.
Jo had given us
an interesting and unusual evening and
we will certainly approach our animal paintings in a different way in the
future.
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| Jo and finished painting |
