Artists & Illustrators - UK (2019-11)

YOUR QUESTIONS

LEFT Darren Reid,

Blue, acrylic on

panel, 110x110cm

BELOW Details from

Darren working on

the painting Blue

How do you settle on a new subject?
The search for subjects is an ongoing
quest, I’m always looking at the world
in terms of possible paintings. I’m
typically drawn to more unusual
scenes or rather scenes that you
wouldn't necessarily think of painting.
That really comes down to me
choosing things to paint that
I would hang on my own wall.
For example, the new small
painting, Pacific Avenue, is of a very
popular location in Venice Beach,
California. It’s where the iconic
“Venice” letters are suspended above
the beach entrance. When I was there,
I was surrounded by people taking the
obligatory photo, so I turned around
and decided to paint the opposite
view, looking the other way.

Do you use reference photography?

Yes, but I only paint locations I have

spent time in. I like to experience the

locations at different times of the day

and under different light conditions.

It helps to know the places a

little bit as it can help me with the

compositions and what it is I'm trying

to convey about a place. I take many

photos and sketches when I’m

researching a location and usually

have an idea of what the painting is

going to be while I'm there.

Do you use one master image? Or are

your paintings a composite of many?

The compositions for the paintings are

worked out back in the studio, I’ll use

various reference photos to compose

the drawing, the paintings are never a

reproduction of a single image. I play

with the perspectives and edit the

scene digitally to suit the painting,

adding or removing elements.

Ultimately, I’m trying to produce

a painting that represents how I feel

or felt about a place. Sometimes the

narrative is more obvious than others

but it’s always there.

Pacific Avenue is much smaller than

your other recent works. How did your

approach to composition change?

The larger paintings are composed

to lead your eye into and through the

painting using perspective, structure

and other mechanisms.

For the smaller work, the painting

was so small I couldn’t really do that.

I realised the image was really taken

in at one glance and you only really

move around the image upon close

inspection, so the composition

needed to be more immediate, more

intimate and, instead of expanding

the perspective as I would normally

do on a large painting, I reduced it.

How do you go about transferring

the image to your support? Is there

much sketching involved or is it

more technical?

The compositions are always drawn

directly on thecanvasorpanelfrom

Artists & Illustrators 71