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141. YELLOW IRIS – PREVIEW
Happy Mothers day to everyone in the UK! And what better way to spend your free afternoon than painting a little something just for you. This is a departure from our normal figures and we’ve gone for a yellow iris with lots of wet into wet to make our smooth soft edges in the background and a little more crisp and detailed work inside our main flower for focus, just make you background darker than your flower here, and this is a great way to relax for an hour and a half…
Read More140. GIRL WITH THE STRIPED TOP
This week we’re doing this fantastic painting of “Girl with the striped top”. This uses our normal process of a three colour first wash and using our 6 colours to add depth and tone to our main subject, then we add the dark top background which makes our highlights pop off the page and finally add a little texture to our foreground. You’ll really love this one and you can do it a few times to really master highlights. Enjoy…
Read More139. SUNSHINE MESSAGES
This week we’re doing a really quick single wash painting. It’s called ‘sunshine messages’ and is a photo of something we see everyday, a lady sat outside catching up on social life by phone! The challenge here is preserving whites correctly, look for your soft lines and crisp lines to keep those highlights as bright as you can, try it a few times and see if you can improve each time. It’s a nice easy piece to get us ready for some of my more complicated paintings coming up. Enjoy…
Read More138. DAD AND SON FISHING – PREVIEW
This week is a beautiful image of a father and son fishing from the steps in Tenerife. This is a great tutorial for all abilities and is broken down into easy sections. You can start with the usual light wash followed by focusing on our two fisherman, then the sea and the dark background steps make our two fishermen lift off the page and become the stars of the painting. You’ll all enjoy this one.
Read More137. ENJOYING HIS PINT – PREVIEW
Remember when we were ‘Back in the pub’ well this image is a close up from that very painting that were going to do in more detail. He’s looking quite sombre as he contemplates life over a good old British Pint. Lot’s of light to use here, in fact its the most important element, use it to accent where the brights hit his face and the table in front of him is important as it bounce light back onto him too. Use those deep tones to create a rich, wood effect, and don’t forget to let the soft furnishings feel nice and rounded. This is great for all levels.
Read More136. YELLOW BEETLE – PREVIEW
And now for something totally different… Yellow Beetle is a fabulous painting that everyone can complete. No figures here but plenty of detail to add as we create this beautiful image from Mexico. Lots of wet into wet with a little bit of wet into dry for our crisp details and we add a final layer of dark detail to really accentuate the colours and highlights here. This is a great tutorial for all abilities and a fun way to start your new year.
Read More135. SNOW SHADOWS – PREVIEW
It’s Christmas season and what better way to celebrate than painting our winter scene. This is ‘Snow Shadows’ and is a beautiful composition of my own using two photos to create this stunning snow painting. This year we aren’t using any masking fluids, we’re going old school and using the paper to create our highlights. Plenty of colour is still used in our surroundings to accent the whites, a great painting for all abilities. Merry Christmas everyone.
Read More134. OXFORD CYCLIST – PREVIEW
This is our second painting in our cycling series and is faster paced and has a little more detail. We kept our Charleston cyclist very loose but here we’re spending some more time focusing on the bike detail, still loose, but a little more focused and precise. Plus our background matches more with our reference. We’re trying to improve our observations and retain detail from our reference photo this time whilst moving slightly faster to ‘keep it loose’. We’re not fine art painting just adding a little more precision here. Enjoy…
Read More133. TWO OLD FRIENDS – PREVIEW
It’s highlights week, so we are painting “Two old friends”. This image was chosen specifically to give all of my fabulous members some real practice on your highlights, It’s a stunning, bright subject with tonnes of white sunlit areas, so be bold and go for the best highlights you’ve ever created. Remember it’s easier to add layers than take away layers so slow and steady wins the race here, watch a section, rewind and watch it again as you do it. You’ll love it the results if you PTW (preserve those whites) enjoy everyone…
Read More132. CYCLING IN CHARLESTON
This week we start a three part series on one of my favourite subjects, cycling. This week is our beginner piece where I take a little more time on a beautiful image from Charleston in 2017. But we won’t do the second instalment straight away, so next time will be something involving people and we will revisit cycling in a month or so. Here though we really focus on highlights and using colourful shadows to create depth in the image. Don’t get bogged down in every detail, keep it loose, especially in the background, less is more here. Enjoy…
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