Andrew Eadington
For novice artists, the complications of working with
oil paint can prove a testing obstacle, but for Andrew
Eadington it’s a welcome opportunity to get his hands
dirty. “Oil paint is definitely my medium,” he says with
relish. “I enjoy the geeky complexity of the different drying
times and transparencies, and also the thought of all
these artists through history struggling in their own
unique ways to deal with this weird stuff.”
He first fell for the medium after buying his first tube
of paint, a Venetian Red from Old Holland. Taken aback
by the strength of the pigment, he realised colour was
something he wanted to explore in depth, and his research
certainly seems to have paid off. His latest figurative
painting, The Letter was one of the highlights of the recent
FBA Futures 2020 exhibition. FBA Futures was launched
in 2012 by the Federation of British Artists with member
artists selecting choice works from degree shows. It has
evolved to become the UK’s largest annual survey of
contemporary figurative art by emerging talents.
“The Letter began as a few drawings made whilst having
breakfast,” explains Andrew, who was a recent graduate of
the Portrait Diploma at the Heatherley’s School of Fine Art
in London. “I had been thinking a lot about how Pierre
Bonnard would work mostly from drawings meaning the
colour he used either came from memory or was invented
rather than directly observed.”
Inspired by this approach, Andrew deviated from his
norm of working from life and challenged himself to work
solely from his drawings. Spurred on by the composition,
which incorporated the interior and exterior linked
via the window, he was able to play with the spatial
dynamics of colour and experiment freely. He quickly
arrived at a red-and-green complimentary colour scheme.
“The actual room in my flat is painted Magnolia, so that
had to go,” he explains.
He built up the colour working from dark to light,
continuing to make multiple drawings of features from
the room, such as the flowers on the table, to continue
building the scene. The view from the window was
eventually transformed from its original street scene into a
strange landscape when, in his own words, he frustratedly
threw in some splurges of paint with his palette knife.
http://www.andreweadington.comFresh
Paint
Inspiring new artworks, straight off the easel
andrew’s
toptiP
“Try only working
from sketches to create
a disconnect with your
subject and free up
your use of colour”