Water-based oils are a relatively recent development. In the past oils were made with and cleaned with turpentine and regular oils. Some artists had difficulty with the fumes from the solvents and thus the innovation of water-based oils was welcomed. Caroline mentioned that there were three water-based oil brands that she uses, although this is … Read more
Painting with Pallet Knives. Painting with pallet knives can give an interesting textural effect to your painting.The knives come in different shapes and sizes. There are short square ones which tend to be good for using on roofs and shingles shapes as well as various flowers and grasses. The smaller diamond shaped ones have the … Read more
Caroline chose a large sheet of water colour paper and liberally applied water to the surface, the subject was a beautiful forest scene with reflections in a lake. With a mid sized pointed brush, for the background the Quink was diluted and as it hit the paper burst into the damp surface, some of the … Read more
BRUSHES used in ART Caroline gave us an excellent education on various types of brushes used for art. She divided them into oil/acrylic/encaustic which use syththetic or hog brushes (encaustic) and the softer synthetic or synthetic/squirrel or Sable brushes for watercolour. Prior to starting she had a number of tips for us. Generally, watercolour brushes … Read more
Lost Edges in Paintings Using photographs from paintings by John Singer Sargent, Caroline showed the edges which melded into surrounding background colours. These lost edges create moods of mystery and creating distances. It makes images meld into the surrounding area. The surrounding hard edges will pop out bringing your attention to them. In Carolines demo … Read more
Mono Printing and Jelly Painting Steph Howard gave us a demonstration on mono printing during our Thursday Dupont class. She used Essdee water soluble block printing ink but said that the Speedball printing ink was just as good. A piece of acetate was given to each person and instructed to put a small amount of … Read more
Caroline demonstrated how to use and get the most out of watercolour pencils. She picked quite a colourful portrait of an older lady. Looking carefully she decided which colour pencils were needed for the face, red being a strong colour and yellow a weaker one. Starting with the dark areas, she began to ‘layer’ the … Read more
Caroline started off this demonstration by instructing us to soak our watercolour paper for 5 to 10 minutes. She also stated that she used a size 12 watercolour brush and a rigger. She recommended 300 g watercolour paper taped down in order to stop the wrinkling of the paper. You could use it at an … Read more
Caroline Marsland instructed us that perspective, shape, tonal values and contrast are what we need to look at in mastering how to draw or paint in the shadows.There are dark shadows blending into half shadows as well as reflected light. Often light will come up from the bottom.With some shapes such as a tree, the … Read more
Caroline was unavailable to demonstrate for us this week, but fortunately Amanda Davies came along to show us how to draw with ‘drawing’ ink as opposed to writing ink, the latter used more for calligraphy. It’s was am extremely informative demonstration. Pens, different drawing pens for drawing ink, these have a split in the nib … Read more