20 Artists&Illustrators
ABOVE RIGHT Linda
Edward, Solitude,
oil on canvas,
50x50cmLinda Edward
Inspiration for Portfolio Plus member Linda Edward’s latest
painting, Solitude, struck while looking out across the water
from the promenade at West Kirby to Hilbre Island in the
Dee estuary, when a landscape at sunset was completed
by the arrival of a lone seagull.
“The seagull seemed to symbolise the quiet solitude at
that moment,” she tells me. “So, I took a photo to capture
the changing light and colours as the sun set.” With views
of the North Wales coast from her home on the Wirral,
Linda often finds herself faced with artistic inspiration
with a wealth of fields and woodland in her local area.
“I’m constantly taking photos of the changing weather,
clouds, light that frequently change on the coast.”
“I sketch from life for life drawing and still life subjects,
but the light changes too quickly for me to capture
landscapes so I use my camera to ‘sketch’ the view,
making note of any particular colours that I want to use.”
Back in the studio with photo in hand, Linda set to work
sketching with paint directly onto a square canvas.She worked with flat brushes to avoid getting weighed
down by the temptation to focus on excessive detail.
After building up the background and key compositional
features, she switched to a palette knife to add highlights
and give the paint a more tactile feel. “A palette knife is
great for adding fresh colour, texture and highlights,” she
explains. “And I find oils, because of their slow drying time,
can easily become muddied with a brush.”
Linda first started out as a watercolourist before
experimenting with acrylics during her time at college,
but now works in oils preferring their texture and ability
to be blended and create a variety of marks.
Slow drying times come with their fallbacks however,
so to keep up productivity Linda will work across several
canvases at a time, returning to add layers to each painting
as the previous layer dries. “It also helps if you feel stuck
on the progress of one piece of work to have something
else to turn to and then return to the other work with
fresh eyes,” she says.
http://www.artistsandillustrators.co.uk/linseFresh Paint
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