ALISON BOARD DEMONSTRATED BRUSHO IN MAY

 

Our May meeting with professional artist Alison Board introduced us to Brusho powder which she used with watercolours and Posca marker pens. She explained that Brusho is fantastically unpredictable. 

She used it at first by applying a tiny quantity of powder on the paper and then spraying it with water and/or mixing in watercolour. Light areas were dabbed out with tissue. Her nifty heat gun dried each section.

The second method with Brusho was mixing it with watercolour to make an ink. Warning - remove spills with Milton sterilising fluid! The textures in her painting gave the parrot its feathers.

Ali usually has 4 or 5 pictures on the go in her studio. She works quickly and above all, avoids overworking. We had an enlightening and enjoyable evening.

PLEIN AIR EVENING WITH HELEN

 

Helen Bartlett's PLEIN AIR evening focused on every aspect of sketching and painting in the open air.

We learnt about artists in the past and present who worked outdoors, essential equipment to take, how to use photos and much more.

Helen is herself experienced in painting and sketching outdoors. This is painting was done at the Palais de Vaches at Lower Exbury Farm.

Helen had prepared free viewfinders and a factsheet to help to with composition.

Sketches are often used alongside photographs as the first step in doing a painting of an outdoor scene. Here are a few examples of some of Helen's sketches..

Our own photos were then used to start our sketches.

 

 

Thank you so much for all the work that you put into the evening Helen. Your enthusiasm is infectious and she persuaded many of us to attempt sketching again in future!