YOUR QUESTIONS
BOTTOM Darren
Reid, The Red
House, acrylic on
panel, 150x80cm
BELOW Darren
working on The
Red HouseI tend to work with a reduced palette
of colours and mix my own from those
which helps with the finished balance
of the painting. As for getting the
colours right when mixed on different
days, that’s just something that
comes with experience.
There are lots of areas of different
colours even in one tiny section of
your paintings. Do you plan out the
order of things before painting?
Yes, when a painting can take up to
four months to complete, planning is
something you have to do. I never get
as much finished in a day as I set out
to do though.
It’s important not to rush the detail
- accept that sometimes a day’s
painting may only be 5x5cm but so
long as it’s a good 5x5cm then that
day wasn’t wasted.
A long painting must give you plenty
of time to reflect. Do you ever make
changes mid-way through?
The larger paintings always evolve to a
degree during painting, but I've usually
resolved all the compositional issues
at the drawing phase. Sometimes I'll
change things, like in one painting
there was supposed to be a dog on
the right that, ultimately, I painted
over as I felt it wasn’t working. It’s only
when you start to see the work come
together that you really get an idea of
whether the composition is going
to work or not, in that instance the
composition didn’t need the dog.Any tips for maintaining your
concentration?
Yoga and coffee! No, I think good
concentration is just something I’m
blessed with. I listen to music when
I paint and tend to paint for an entire
album of songs before taking a coffee
break and then going again, so in
60-90 minutes sessions, usually from
around 9am in the morning until 6pm
in the evening.
I’m always trying to push myself
with the paintings so keeping them
challenging helps keep you
concentrated. Studio lighting is
important too. I work under daylight
bulbs if it’s a dark day, but I prefer
to paint under natural light.How do you avoid smudging previous
passages of painting?
I work in acrylics, so smudging isn’t
an issue after about 30 minutes. The
bigger issue for acrylic is remembering
the paint will always dry darker than
when you put it on so have that in
mind when you’re mixing colours.Do you varnish your paintings?
Yes, it’s important for two reasons.
Firstly, acrylic paint reacts differently
when you tint it with other colours- some earth tones can go very flat,
some become quite chalky looking,
while others retain their gloss – so
when I’m painting I have that in mind,
knowing that when the finished
painting is varnished it will bring all
the colours back together, deepening
the earth tones and balancing the
palette across the work.
Secondly, it’s important to protect
the surface. The varnish acts as a
barrier against the painted surface in
case something is spilled or touches
the surface. It comes in all varieties
so, depending on what I’m painting,
I'll use gloss, semi-gloss or
matt varnishes.
http://www.darrenreid.co.uk