By working quickly, you learn confidence and a deftness of hand that become invaluable in more involved
paintings.
Using your brush in different ways for various parts of the
painting helps to differentiate them.
To differentiate the green of the hedge from the
foreground, I leave out the Indigo and increase the
amount of Raw Sienna – this warms the green and
so brings it forward in the picture plane. Using my
No12 Top-Acryl on its side, I push a thin layer of
this green back and forth so I have different degrees
of opacity and transparency, giving the foreground
a sense of depth and suggested detail. You can see
here the criss-cross marks from my priming, which
helps provide a slight texture and movement to the
image.
The Transparent Pyrrole Orange has been used in all parts of the
painting except for the tree.Detail also brings an area forward in the picture plane.
Roughing the green up close to the front end of the painting
and ticking in a few warm tones with the Transparent
Pyrrole Orange and Raw Sienna is enough to separate the
foreground and stop it “sliding off” the painting.
Alla Prima painting needn’t result in masterpieces but
is certainly a great way to speed up your technique and
improve your way of looking. This simple work took less
than an hour and demonstrates some handy landscape
methods: arranging space by working from cool colours
and broad marks at the back to warm colours and smaller
marks at the front;
composing in
horizontal thirds
(top two thirds sky,
roughly halved
into dark and light,
and the lower third
ground); breaking
the horizontals
with some
verticals, and
using a wide tonal
range.
The
Impressionists
popularised alla
prima landscape
painting, but I
encourage you to
watch ‘A Bigger
Picture’ by David
Hockney, to see
an artist who takes
the technique to a
phenomenal scale.
His alla prima
paintings are true
masterpieces.