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t STAGE ONE
Once the base colour had dried I started by using my 2in brush with
a strong bias towards cadmium yellow medium and, using my whole
arm, I created some long, flowing marks on the outskirts of the
canvas; as I reached the centre of the canvas I added some cadmium
orange to the same brush and applied a slightly more orange bias
towards the centre, which will indicate the area where the skull will
be placed. You may notice that these initial marks were laid and not
returned to – not playing with your marks of colour helps to keep
the paint vibrant; over mixing the paint on the canvas makes the
colour go dullu STAGE TWO
Using the same brush I added crimson and started to indicate some form.
More consideration was made of the shape and the darker red helped it
stand out from the other colours. I wanted just enough information to
give me an idea of the skull without creating a solid outline. All angles
of the brush were used to create a variety of mark; some were slightly
broken up with shorter strokes, helping them to stand out from previous
marks but are still in keeping with the energy of the early marks
t STAGE THREE
At this stage I was looking a little more
carefully at creating the skull shape but
I was aware that my marks still needed
to be relatively loose and painterly.
To develop the skull shape I applied
some darker tones with deep violet and
crimson; I also introduced some lighter
tints using yellow ochre and white and
cadmium orange with white, in turn
creating some order through the chaos
of mark making. At this stage I had two
size 35 Gerstaecker brushes, one for the
light tints and one for my dark tones.
This removed the worry about cleaning
my brushes at different stages – if the
bristles of the brushes are damp they
won’t dry out