Leisure Painter — June 2017

30 JUNE 2017 http://www.painters-online.co.uk

discovering new ways to use the medium.

I hate repeating anything I know I can do

and become bored easily. I like to keep

shifting the goal posts and this medium

allows me to do that.

You can see the impact a different paper

has on your image by comparing the

paintings you see on these pages. Rough

paper is perfect for painting moving water

(see Storm Passing, page 29), and the

Yupo or plastic surface, used in Storm

Coming in the Pilbara(right), adds to

the dramatic effect of the stormy sky. In

Storm PassingI relied on the brush used

on its side to caress the paper. This means

laying the brush horizontally against the

paper surface and painting up the face of

a wave to achieve the colour of the water

and leaving the white of the wave as

unpainted white paper. A similar effect is

used for clouds although in the sky I may

choose to spray water or wet randomly

to create soft as well as crisp edges.

On the Yupo, the paint has a mind of its

own and is dependent on gravity so you

must paint on a flat plane. The energy

Calling Home, Gondolier, watercolour on Hot-Pressed paper, 22x30in. (56x76cm).

I loved what happened to the reflections in this water and decided to let the paint just

have its way rather than try to tame it into something else. It provided a wonderful foil

for the buildings. The story for this picture of the gondolier calling someone on his

mobile, seemed to capture the incongruous meeting of old and new ways.

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Carousel, watercolour on Yupo, 10x10in.

(25x25cm). The synthetic Yupo surface

actually forces you to work in partnership,

because you cannot easily paint over it or

the paint will lift off. You must pay attention,

adding only what is necessary and no more.

Letting it dry doesn’t work on this surface,

because once it is dry, anything I touch will

lift off so marks need to be made during the

drying process. When dry, I can come back

and lift the pure whites out of the colour.

However, Yupo is almost impossible to glaze

over. It works perfectly for this study.

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