Artists & Illustrators — June 2017

92 Artists & Illustrators

ACRYLICS

Top tip

Use blocks of

colour to indicate

light and form

within the

painting

3

Some colour notes are added, which

gives me a sense of how to pitch the

tones throughout the picture. I use the big

brush again to adjust the original drawing

and modify the shadows. Note how strong

the tonal contrast is around the fruit and pot.

4

As I block in across the canvas, I make

big adjustments to composition. All the

changes are contributing to the painting’s

creative development. The original drawing’s

robust mark-making is strong enough to hold

its ground as the paint splashes over.

5

I’m using the acrylic without a medium or

water. Acrylic is semi-transparent, so it’s

nice how the blues contrast by letting some

of the underpainting through. All the colours

are using the underpainting tone as a means

of harmonising the colour.

6

The geraniums are painted as blocks of

colour, modulating from orangey-red to

bright pink. I’m trying to suggest them with as

little detail as possible to free the purity of

the colour harmonies. Again with a bakers’

brush, I dash in contrast with green and Pthalo.

9

Painting freely sounds undisciplined, but I

am always on a knife-edge about having

a readable structure and spontaneous

mark-making. This section holds together the

stages: free drawing, loose application of

paint and a high level of abstraction.

7

With the bakers’ brush, I use blocks of

colour to indicate light and form.

Blending the colour would lessen the effect.

Small touches of turquoise, magenta, purple

and Pthalo Green work to describe form and

light while vivifying the colour contrasts.

10

One way to check if the painting is

firing on all cylinders is to look at it in

a frame. The edges are ‘locked in’ to give you

a sense of how dynamic or unbalanced the

composition is. I was happy with the balance

of colour and structure achieved.

8

The painting is well on the way, but I still

paint out a section in the bottom left to

clarify the composition and rework the colour.

You can see how balanced the composition is

with the angle of the chairs taken from a high

viewpoint to increase the spatial dynamic.

90 Terence Clarke.indd 92 06/04/2017 17:25