artistApril 2021 http://www.painters-online.co.uk?????????
30
DEMONSTRATION Mother and Daughter
A wonderful subject and the challenge was to not get overwhelmed
with orange!t STAGE ONE
Having sketched the
orangutans, I worked on
dry paper and made use of
wet-up-to-wet. Strong light
and shade help to create
form and you will always
find interesting colour in
the darkest shadows if you
look for it. I started in the lit
area below the nose – when
working quickly, mixing
wet-up-to-wet, I like to do
the darker colours second.
Holding the brush up the
handle enabled brushstrokes
that left spaces of white
paper. I made use of cool greens and violets against
warm oranges and browns. Rendering the correct
tone is most important and allows you to be free
with your choice of colour. This part of the painting
progressed into the dark area around the cheeks
and eyes and up to the pale forehead. As with most
portraits, the eyes were very important so I took my
time to get them rightp STAGE TWO
I continued into the face of
the baby, ‘locking’ it into the
mother’s with a soft edge. In
this way lost-and-found edges
were achieved in the darks.
I fused colour wet-in-wet to
develop depthmy paintings, the image is fragmented
to allow the white of the paper to be
part of the picture. Fragmentation
increases light and also movement,
so even a static image like Please, Sir, I
want some more... has an energy! In Zebra
Stampede (page 29) I have subdued the
silhouette and instead concentrated
on what’s happening inside. Again, the
image is fragmented but this time it’s
the stripes in the body that I wanted
to retain. In this instance the legs
are moving so fast that they blur or
disappear. The sense of movement is
enhanced by the soft-edged horizontal
shapes in the background.Colourful greys
I like to retain the white of the paper
to create light and energy and find
this is enhanced when combined with
subtle changes in colour temperature.
Rather than thinking of shadows as
‘grey’ I see them as having a warm or
cool temperature; often when shadow
areas are pale I will use unmixed cool
blues alongside pure warm crimsons
and oranges to create colourful greys.This works in watercolour because of
the transparency of the medium. For
instance, cobalt blue makes a clear
deep blue when applied rich and
creamy, but watered down it becomes
not only a paler colour but also less
intense (or ‘greyer’). I really enjoyed
painting Searching Snowy Owl (left); it is
a beautiful design that makes use of
lost-and-found white paper between
the owl and the background, and also
uses colourful shadows. Mixing on the
paper, I let cobalt blue run against
crimson alizarin or cadmium orange and
then back to blue again. The effect is
similar to that of the paint before it has
dried, it shines with luminosity. To make
the most of this technique you mustn’t
overstate the tone of the shadows; it
works best if you can juxtapose these
with jots of very dark, such as the tips of
the wings.Design
I am drawn to simplicity when it comes
to design. Too much background can
distract from the subject, which ist Searching Snowy Owl, watercolour on
Arches Rough 140lb (300gsm), 121/2 3 181/2in
(32 3 47cm).
Using pale mixes of cobalt blue, alizarin
crimson and cadmium orange I painted