Mixed Media 2

This time I thought I would create a painting using a combination of gouache and pastels. The reasoning behind this is that both mediums give very distinctive effects which are immensely suitable for the subject matter. The gouache I use when I need some precision or when I wish to take advantage of its painterly qualities, the pastel when I wish a softer , more blurred effect.



The support I have chosen is a fairly textured pastel paper in bright orange. It is a very deliberate choice as the subject matter is bold, colourful and full of movement. I block in the main composition in gouache, sometimes in a free, loose , almost watercolour technique. At other times I use a thicker impasto dragging it over the texture of the paper which can give beautiful broken, dappled effects.




I now apply pastel in broad strokes, and dabs and at other times blending and smoothing. The aim is to create the bright, almost garish light of a fairground and a huge sense of movement and energy as the merry go round spins by.



The finished painting.

Mixed media

It is on occasions, great fun to play around with different mediums and combining them in unusual ways. The monochrome painting below was done using charcoal, conte, soft chalk and gouache. It is of an old jetty at Felixstowe Ferry on the Suffolk coast.




I began with a piece of MDF which I primed with a couple of coats of acrylic gesso . I then sketched in the composition using charcoal. I used conte crayon for finer detail and soft chalks to soften and blend large areas like the sky. At other times I used gouache in certain passages, e.g. a lot of the background , but overlaid it in places with chalk.

Painting a landscape in gouache 1

Gouache is one of my favourite mediums, particularly for painting out of doors. It dries rapidly, yet is still water soluble if you wish to go back into it and make alterations. It has a soft chalky quality about it , French chalk having been added to the pigments in their production.
As a result , it is a very forgiving medium allowing one to proceed with the minimum of planning, to easily make amendments and to paint light over dark.
In this particular painting I am working on Bockingford watercolour board and using Winsor and Newton designers gouache.

With a large hog’s hair brush I have very rapidly blocked in the general composition, the sweep of the river, the distant hills and indicated the position of the trees in the foreground. It has taken around 30 minutes for this initial stage of the painting.

Painting a landscape in acrylics - part 1

This is a painting of the small village of Alcaufar, one of the places we visit in Menorca on Inspiration Holidays.

Initially, I do some quick compositional sketches in either pencil or charcoal. I am looking at the main masses, at the rhythms and lines running through the painting and how this all relates to the picture frame. I check for the Golden section (or Rule of Thirds) and patterns of light and shade. I find it invaluable to do all this preliminary work, to think about what I am painting and why, rather just sitting down and hoping for the best! On the Holiday, I encourage students to get into this way of working.
Moving on to the painting, I quickly establish the main masses of the composition. I do not do any preliminary drawing with pencil or charcoal, but go straight in with the brush. I am working in acrylics, but at this stage the paint is very fluid, almost like a watercolour.

Acrylic/oil portrait painting 2

Here, I am still working in acrylics. I now begin to feel my way into the composition. The figures are roughly drawn in, as is the basic perspective of the background setting. I establish a cool green underpainting for future warm flesh tones.

Using acrylics as an underpainting for oils

The previous oil portrait was done in a traditional manner. This time I am using acrylics as the underpainting. The reason? It dries extremely rapidly so layer upon layer can be built up quickly prior to adding the oils on top. It is spontaneous and can be great fun, as can be seen from the somewhat colourful and apparently chaotic illustration on the right. But the colours I am using are chosen very deliberately to pick up those in the subject.

The finished portrait painting in oils

Over a number of sessions, the details in the head and hands was built up. This involved various techniques- glazing, scumbling and the use of body colour. At times stiff pigment was used, at others the paint was diluted with medium. I favour a stand oil, dammar varnish and turpentine mixture. The background was added during this process as well as details of the chair and clothing.
The background was painted over the edges of the hair . When this was dry, the hair was dragged back over it and a sable rigger used to establish some of the finer wisps.

Charcoal sketch to portrait painting in oils

Having decided on the finished preparatory sketch, I now prepared to do the oil painting. I chose to work on a fine linen canvas which I had stretched before applying two coats of size and two coats of oil primer. I then stained the canvas with a transparent wash of raw umber. This gives me a very useful mid tone on which to build my lights and darks.
I drew the figure in with a brush and fluid paint ( lots of turpentine) before moving on to the blocking in stage. All this time, I am checking angles, proportions, rhythms through the figure, and ,of course, position on the canvas. There is nothing worse than painting a fine head only to discover it's in the wrong place!
The accompanying illustrations show the painting in various stages of development. The head is well under way, the hands are just rapidly sketched in , and there are still large areas of the original staining. In my next blog I will show how the portrait was developed further.

How to create a charcoal portrait 3

Thanks Simon for your comments. These are usually fairly quick exploratory sketches, not worrying too much about either likeness or expression - they are mainly about pose and composition. If I did however, chance to get the "perfect expression", I would hope to recognise it and be able to replicate it in the final painting. The client and I both agreed that sketch 2 was not the "correct" one; the sitter is a very lively 92 year old who despite her physical frailty is mentally very alert, enjoys talking to people and is very aware of what is going on in the world. We both felt that sketch 3 expressed this better.

How to create a charcoal portrait 2

This drawing is another preliminary sketch for the finished painting. The materials and techniques used are the same as in my previous blog. Here, I have gone for a three-quarter length sketch as her arthritic hands were an interesting feature. Altogether I felt this pose produced a more reflective portrait.