Drawing lessons - illustrated lesson notes for teachers and students

Painting Percy the Pelican

called it 'Percy and Pricilla paddle off to find a pilchard'

Flushed with this initial success I decided to do a larger and deeper view - deeper water that is

• so I repaired down to the river and observed the ripples and sand. I was also concerned not to
  let any background material interfere with all the information in the foreground.

This is a larger painting with some improvements on the first with changes made to Pricilla. I

called this 'Percy and Pricilla picnic in the pilchard grounds'.

Technically the primatura was a raw umber with a little light red and raw sienna, wiped over

with a rag for eveness and quick drying. Next the sand was laid down with much the same mix

only with variations and secondary sand ripples. The sky was laid down with the compliment of

the sand with the two merging two thirds of the way up the canvas. These constituted the darks

of the sky and sand. The next layer was lighter and wet-in-wet, as was all the painting from

here on, with the mix getting oilier as we work forward. Some of the lighter ripples are added to

the sand and while a lighter gray is added to the sky and worked downwards in 'figure eight

http://www.geocities.com/~jlhagan/advanced/pelicans.htm (2 of 4)1/13/2004 3:44:57 AM