New Artist - 2016__

Land’s End Cliffs: a step-by-step guide

Paul’s technique creates a loose and vibrant painting.

Paul teaches a three-day mixed media ‘Coast‘ course

at the Newlyn School of Art, and is one of several

tutors on the school‘s week-long landscape course.

A lot is dictated by the weather, but here‘s a rough

guide to how the course works:

Day one: Students focus on composition basics in

drawing and sketches, making the main placement of

shapes on to paper. Students may do one painting

• a tonal painting – usually using indigo and white
  gouache. Paul will usually do a demonstration.
  Day two: Students are in the same location so that
  they really get a feel for the place and develop their
  work in response to that.

Day three: Students move to a new location that’s very

different from the first site and learn to make use of

their full colour palette.

MORE INFORMATION

For 2016 dates and details go to:

http://www.newlynartschool.co.uk or call 01736 365557

Paul Lewin at Newlyn School of Art

I have a few different techniques to vary the

mark making within a painting; here I am

throwing the paint on with a semi-controlled

’splattering’ movement. I like to work with

random marks as it keeps the painting

urgent and alive.

As the painting progresses, keeping it open and

loose is a very difficult thing to do as the eye is

always attracted to the little details. However,

until the more general problems of composition,

tone and colour are solved, any time spent on

detail is often wasted and can in fact hinder your

progress by making you more precious and less

inclined to make changes for the benefit of the

‘bigger picture‘, thus draining the energy out

of your work. It is not until relatively late in the

process of painting that I start to work in the

details and, in some cases, I may only need to

put in the briefest of suggestion of detail to

make it suddenly shine.

Step 7. Mark making

Step 8. Work in the details

Watercolours with gouache

“It’s important students
open up to learn new
things,“ says Paul.

ARTWORK:

CROAGH PATRICK FROM CLARE ISLAND

Avoid adding details

too early – get everything

else right first, then

add detail a little

at a time.