COLOUR MASTERCLASS

 

Di and Helen gave members an insight into colour relationships and the colour wheel on Wednesday 22nd August. The first section of the demonstration covered four principles illustrated by old master paintings.

 

Complimentary colours - opposites on the colour wheel

Analogous colours - adjacent colours on the colour wheel

Warm and cool colours - the position of colours on the colour wheel

Aerial perspective - using the spectrum (rainbow) to create the illusion of distance

 

Di then introduced the technique of colour mapping, which was originated by American artist James Gurney and featured in his book "Colour and Light: a guide for the realist painter "(Andrews McMeel Publishing, Kansas City 2010). Colour maps are used to limit the range of colours in order to create a colour scheme for a painting.

 

Di talked about using colour in her own painting and in paintings by other artists. She showed examples of colour schemes that she has done and said that they made painting it faster and easier. Then she showed how to make a colour scheme from a photograph. The text of the demonstration is available on Di's Old England Fine Art website: http://oldenglandfineart.com (see Techniques).

 

After the break members used the worksheets and created a colour map and colour scheme using a photograph for reference. Di asked members to make a colour wheel at home using their own paints and bring them to the next demonstration meeting. 

DENNIS HILL 'GETS LOST' PAINTING

"Throw away your pencil says Dennis Hill. He only uses one to sketch the angles of the face in a portrait. Using loose transparent washes, he likes simple shapes with some negative painting and is not afraid to introduce an abstract element. The results are stylish and timeless. Dennis paints freely and abandons himself to the painting process. Like many of us, he 'gets lost' in it.

His preferred support is stretched 90lb Saunders Waterford for the smoother surface. His favourite brush is a no. 10 filbert oxhair and they are supported with a squirrel mop and a nylon rigger. He uses transparent colours: burnt sienna, raw sienna, ultramarine, permanent rose, alizarin crimson, aureolin, cadmium lemon, cadmium orange, cerulean blue, winsor blue and winsor violet.

Dennis used flowers for our demonstration and then added a cottage shape on the right-hand side. He enjoys painting cottages and dry stone walls in the Purbeck hills.  

Dennis's Tips:

• Apply the colour and leave it. He never wipes preferring to lighten with clean water and a brush.
• Don't touch an almost-dry wash
• Use the best quality paints
• Place additional colour to the base of a shape
• Mix, don't buy, greens - for example: cadmium orange and ultramarine

 

Dennis brough portraits and other examples of his work to show us.

S.A.A.SHOW AT BRISTOL

Helen Davies organised our trip to the S.A.A. show at the old Temple Meads Station in Bristol. She was fantastic - counting us all out and counting us all back!

There were many workshops and demonstrations going on throughout the day. Art materials were also on sale, but not quite as many as previous shows in London. Here are Di's photos.

Dee Cowell ran a tight ship on the Derwent Artbars workshop. She whistled to gain our attention!

Denise and Audrey stopped for a chat.

Helen enjoyed Fraser Scarfe's Interactive Acrylic workshop...

...and his individual attention!

Murial took part in Sue Deighton's drawing workshop...

...while David paid close attention to Matthew Palmer.

Ruth was fortunate to secure a seat at Hashim Akib's popular acrylics demonstration.

Mary and Claire were spotted shopping.

Braving a heavy shower to get back to the coach, we were greeted by sunshine in Totton. I took a group photo of a happy bunch of artists.

Now to get started on the paintings for the summer exhibition!

THE FACE STEP-BY-STEP WITH SHARON HURST

Sharon made a welcome return to Totton, this time concentrating on constructing the face. Sharon used ShinHan watercolours and employd flat washes painted as shapes. The shapes were finally blended to a smoot finish with a damp brush.

Sharon masked her lightest areas before beginning to paint.She painted a wet-into wet background with the board turned upside-down. The basic skin tone was burnt sienna. Other skin tones would have tiny amounts of alizarin crimson or burnt umber added. 
Sharon paints washes on small areas, rinses the brush with water, and adds another wash beside it. The modelling is achieved by the use of a darker skin tone on the outlines and shadows.

Sharon's painting tips are:-
     Don't worry about pre-stretching the paper.
     Fill a brush with soap and roll it before dipping it into masking fluid
     Don't let the edge of a wash dry as you are painting it.
     Don't go back over a wash until it is dry.    
     Don't leave masking fluid on for more than 24 hours.
     Put salt on the paper before the paint has soaked in.

Sharon takes commissions for paintings and special occasion cards.

See http://www.sharonhurst.co.uk/ for more information.

Upbeat Mood at Graham Cox's Pastel Workshop

Members attending Graham Cox's Totton workshop in May produced not one, but two pastel landscapes. Graham's company is called "Moody Views" and he certainly knows how to produce subtle, romantic effects.





Beverly Perry thought that it was a brilliant day and she sent us her two fantastic paintings.

Joan Bass thought that it was a really good day too and here are her paintings.

Shirley Lester also enjoyed painting these two scenes. 

Graham himself also praised the members' paintings. Many thanks to Claire Palmer for organising and running it.

RUSS CULVER PAINTS JAMES HERRIOT

Russ Culver left his pastels at home and brought his oils for an unusual rural painting for Totton Art Society members in April. Russ painted from a photograph of Alfred White, otherwise known as vet James Herriot, with a calf. This combined Russ's best known topics: portraits of people and portraits of animals. The faces are always full of character and Russ prefers to leave his backgrounds simple.

Photo: Robert Wellington

Russ much prefers to use the best quality paints and demonstrated the difference between artist quality and student quality titanium white.

Roy's Titanic Trio

Roy Fisher has three paintings in the Titanic Art Exhibition in this year's Southampton Art Gallery exhibition. Visit before the end of April and look in the foyer gallery.

 

The Titanic Approaches Ireland

Waiting for Departure

Lost Memories