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(lu) #1

DEMONSTRATION


By Evan Woodruffe

There’s nothing like positioning yourself


in front of your subject and having to get


everything down all at once, or “alla prima” to


coin the Italian phrase. This technique is used


in Life Drawing classes, also in painting in the


environment (“en pleine aire”), but can be


applied to any work that is begun and finished


in one session.


T


aking a stripped-down studio is
advisable when painting in the
environment – you may be working
from your lap so it’s best not to complicate
matters. For this demonstration, I’m using a
primed ¼ sheet of watercolour paper, seven
colours, three brushes, a palette pad, some
paper towels and a jar of water; that’s all
you want to carry, though I confess now: it
was raining so I did this at my table.
Underpainting in liquid acrylic quickly
establishes the painting’s composition.

I used a big No16 Top-Acryl filbert
brush to knock in the main elements using
Golden High Flow Acrylic Indigo and
Sepia, and a No4 round for the tree; the
ability to wash the fluid colour quickly
over the primed paper to form a coloured
ground with no texture appealed to me,
and I have a use for the High Flow later
in the painting. The da Vinci Top-Acryl
brushes hold plenty of fluid and are also
strong enough to handle the pasty acrylic
I’ll over-paint with.

Mixing all your colours before you begin
painting allows your painting technique to be
fast and concentrated.

Golden OPEN Acrylic is particularly
good for outdoor painting, as it won’t dry
too quickly. I chose Chromium Oxide
Green, Cobalt Blue, Transparent Pyrrole
Orange (only available in the standard
Heavy Body, but they mix well together),
Raw Sienna, and Titanium White. It’s a
good idea to get all the colours mixed in
advance of painting, so you can see their
relationship to each other, and once you
get working you don’t have to stop your
eye-to-surface flow. I mix a nice warm
black from the Cobalt Blue and Transparent
Pyrrole Orange, which will form the base
for my blustery sky. Down by the horizon I
add a smidgen of Raw Sienna.
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