For Thursday I asked you to bring in All Saints/Halloween objects such as candles, flowers, pumpkins or other related objects and wanted you to think about how mood and atmosphere were conveyed in painting.
Candles/tealights offer us a dramatic light source for our painting, even though the studio lighting will diminish this effect. There are other ways to control the atmosphere in our painting such as in these two examples by Turner and Monet.
In neither example is there much descriptive detail, which is achieved by colour contrast and brushstroke. This is a departure from what we did in the first three classes where we concentrated mostly on shadow and volume.
Up to now we have been concentrating on harmonising our compositions with an analogue palette but on Thursday we can experiment to see how opposites such as orange and blue can work together. To do this we will start with blocking form but then move towards a freer application of "broken" brushwork, in which colour is modulated through "optical mixing".
It would be a good opportunity for people to prepare a dark ground to paint on so why not try covering a piece of paper or card with dark or black paint (on both sides so that it doesn't buckle too badly) so that on Thursday you will be painting mostly light on dark.
Last Thursday I was asked to give the names of the painters we discussed in class who were Monet, Vermeer, Morandi, Thiebaud, Peggi Kroll and Alex Hannah. I was also asked about suitable brushes for painting and would say that as a rule synthetic brushes are softer than hogs hair although the latter loses it's stiffness in water and so not that useful for use with acrylics if used wet. To create rich impasto brushstrokes hogs hair is preferable. I personally like long flat brushes for blocking in and smaller round ones for linework. These are from the Akoya and Shinku synthetic ranges at Jackson's. Left to right the sizes are 8, 6, 4, 2.
I'd also like to mention that Prith, who is one of our current group, is exhibiting her paintings at Art Central in Barry until November:
I hope to see it soon!