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collection Volume 1
17
stunning step-by-step workshops!
Use plein air skills in your art studio
Follow our professional artists and create your best art yet
Create exciting still lifes Be spontaneous with new techniques in Chinese inks
Make a masterpiece from a photo in just 10 steps
Paint striking portraits Follow Stephen Gardner’s in-depth gouache guide
Amazing fur and eyes
Top tips to depict realistic details with pastels on velour
GET YOUR RESOURCES!
50 Spontaneous
watercolours
See page 146
Contents 62 Warming
watercolours
44 Wildlife
in pastels
W orkshop s
6 Bitesize
Improve your skills with these quick tips
44 Pastel on velour
Jill Tisbury paints realistic eyes and fur
50 Cover! Paint Venice
Achieve spontaneity in watercolours
58 Work freely in watercolour
Create a seascape with Jem Bowden
68 Create with
Chinese inks
62 Fire effects in watercolour
Paint warmth and reflection with Olga Sternyk
68 Quick results with Chinese inks Lian Zhen explains his spontaneous style
74 Simple watercolour flowers Hazel Soan brings blooms to life
80 Get outdoors with gouache A look at Peter Chan’s plein-air kit
82 Setting up a still-life composition How Peter Chan uses everyday objects
84 Capture natural light
Values en plein air with Peter Chan
86 Depict light and depth
Peter Chan’s background-to-foreground tips
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88 Light-infused
street scenes
88 Create harmony with light
Margaret Merry’s Granadan street scene
94 Portraits with a limited palette Stephen Gardner explains his technique
100 P aint like... William Wendt
Mick McGinty recreates a sweeping landscape
106 Paint like... Matisse
94 Portraits in a
limited palette
100 Paint like…
William Wendt
112 Paint like…
David Chandler emulates ‘The Magician’
112 Paint like... Kandinsky
Kandinsky
Laura Cramer creates with rhythm and colour
116 Vibrant still
116 Use vibrant colours in still life Paint in acrylics and oils with Sylvia Paul
lifes in oils
120 The beauty of orchids in oils
Enzo Forgione paints the intriguing flower
126 Use slow-drying acrylics
Paint the Cornish coast with Tony Hogan
130 Paint plumage in a loose style
Create these feathered friends in eight steps
134 Draw heads from observation
Chris Legaspi explores shape and planes
140 Figures in three minutes
Chris Legaspi practises with short poses
134 Depicting heads
in graphite
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Bitesize
Bitesize
Whether you have half an hour or an afternoon to spare, follow these quick, simple and fun tips and start experimenting with your art today!
Mix more realisticlooking colours The most important lesson you can learn about how to accurately mix colour is the relationship that complementary colours have with each other. No matter what medium you use, from coloured pencils through to oil paints, being able to understand the effect these colour combinations have on each other is crucial to understanding colour mixing. When mixing colour, begin by choosing a tube colour that’s closest to the shade you’re trying to emulate in paint. Next, look at your subject’s tone to decide whether you need to make the tube colour darker or lighter. Then look at the saturation of the colour you’re attempting to mix. You can’t make the colour straight out of the tube any more vibrant, so most of the time you’ll be desaturating the colour or greying it down. This is where the alchemy of complementary colours comes into its own. Let’s take two complementary colours from the colour wheel onto our palette, to experiment with what we can achieve when we put them together.
Rob Lunn Bath, UK Rob is a self-taught painter, and loves to paint in oils. His influences are Vincent van Gogh, Caravaggio and Ilya Repin. He has taught art workshops since 2012. www.roblunn.co.uk
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Ultramarine Violet
Ultramarine Blue
Phthalo Blue
Phthalo Green
Magenta
Alizarin Crimson
Bright Green Lake
Opposite colours are complimentary
Scarlet Lake
Bright Yellow Lake Permanent Orange
Yellow Lake Deep
Yellow Lake
Be prepared The 12-step colour wheels represents 12 colours that make up the spectrum of light. Colours opposite each other on the wheel are known as complimentary and understanding the effect they have on each other when mixed is a vital element of successful colour mixing. Get into the habit of laying out your colours in a consistent order each time. This will enable you to make mixing choices quickly without having to stop to think ‘Is that a very dark blue-green or a very dark green-blue?’
Quick tips
Follow these steps...
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Grab two decent-sized dollops of complementary colours. If you ever want your greens to look more green or your reds to look more red then put some of their complementary colour next to them to provide a striking contrast in your painting. The same goes for any of the other colours opposite one another on the colour wheel.
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Start by mixing a little of the complementary colours in with each other to see the effect that they have on each other. Depending on what colours you’re using, you’ll need to judge how much to add. Some paints have higher tinting strengths, so a little dab will do. Notice how they take the punch out of each other, creating the ‘greying down’ effect.
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Taking this a step further, try greying down the red completely with the green until it becomes a 50/50 mix, then push on by adding green until it becomes the dominant colour. You can see the array of lovely rich reddy-browns and browny-greens available from just two colours. These mixes may be desaturated, but they’re still packed full of colour.
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Now we’ve pushed the red all the way through to green, try adding some other colours to the mix! I’ve tinted the desaturated mixes with a little Titanium White so you can see the subtlety of the colours more easily. Taking the mixes to their shadow shades I’ve added a little blue (present in all shadows) and balanced this off with more of each complementary colour.
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Bitesize
Achieve unique textures in your oil paintings
Jim Pavelec Chicago, Illinois, USA Jim was a freelance fantasy illustrator for more than 15 years. Over the past few years he’s transitioned into creating dark surreal fine art. www.jimpavelec.com
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When people think of creating texture in a painting, they usually think of additive techniques, meaning those in which you add paint (or found objects) to the piece. An approach I really enjoy that creates fascinating textures is a subtractive one. This means that you apply paint to the surface, and then use something to lift paint up. You can use a variety of things to remove paint from your painting surface, such as brushes loaded with thinner, or paper towels, plastic wrap, palette
knives or scrapers – just about anything you can think of, really! A fun technique I recently discovered uses a kneaded eraser. I get six or seven large kneaded erasers and combine them to create one large eraser. I press the eraser into the surface of various stones and fossils I have collected. This creates organic textures in the eraser. I then press the eraser onto a board with wet oil paint on it. The peaks in the textured eraser pick up the paint, so when I remove the eraser I am left with a very unique texture.
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Quick tips
Follow these steps...
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I begin by laying in a thin layer of acrylic paint (Raw Sienna and Raw Umber in this case) on a small gessoed panel in a quick and painterly fashion. This piece is going to be a surreal portrait, so I paint thickly in oils to describe the shape and features of the head. I also apply thick oil paint around the top of the head. 2
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My goal is to use the subtractive eraser technique to create a textural transition between the head and the background. I press my eraser into a large piece of green malachite, which creates wonderful shapes in the eraser. I then plot where to place the eraser on the painting to get the maximum effect. 3
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I press the eraser firmly into the areas around the head (but not so hard that it completely flattens the eraser). When I remove the eraser, the oil paint has lifted and the thin acrylics beneath are revealed in a kind of ethereal texture that is perfect for the mood I want to create in this piece.
Gathering materials If you plan to use this technique on a regular basis, you want to build up a collection of items to create the eraser textures. They don’t have to be just rocks and fossils, though. To create more linear textures, you can use old computer or mechanical parts. There’s no limit to what you can use. Be creative!
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Bitesize
FOCUS ON PASTELS
Scottish Wildcat Pastel on velour Textured velour adds another dimension to the painting.
Create, lush dense fur in pastels This feisty little Scottish wildcat is a perfect model for practising fur texture with. Here, I am working with pastels on velour, but the main principles hold true for any type of pastel paper. I like to use velour for two reasons. First, it takes plenty of layers before it becomes saturated, and second, the soft ‘tooth’ adds to the final texture that you’re trying to achieve. Knowing the make-up of your subject can help too. Scottish wildcats are ‘true fur’ animals, which means they
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have a thick downy under-layer designed to keep them warm, and a more wiry outer layer to protect them from rain. Knowing this make-up helps you understand what you’re aiming for. With the method I’m showing here, the colour and marks are laid down in three distinct layers to help develop the realism and depth. I’ve sketched my image in pencil and added a diffused background, which I have darkened slightly around the cat.
Jill Northamptonshire, UK Jill is an artist and tutor who specialises in wildlife. She loves to experiment, but her two main passions are pastels and airbrushing (acrylics). www.jilltisbury.co.uk
Pastels special
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Follow these steps...
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The first step is to block in the main colours in the direction of the fur. I’m using stick pastels for vibrancy and quicker coverage, working from dark to light. Ensure that you stay a tone darker in the lightest areas to give yourself the space to add in highlights later. 1
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In this next layer I swap to pastel pencils to develop definition in the fur. Pay attention to where the fur stands in ridges over underlying bone or lays flat over relaxed muscles, and adjust your direction and hair length to suit. Twisting the pencil as you work helps keep it sharp for longer.
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I’ve added the eye and mouth detail so that I can see how the colours work together. Since velour can take many layers, the more layers you add, the better the fur density will look – it’s worth spending time on this part. Although the general direction should be the same, crisscrossing the hair marks will make the fur look even more natural.
WATCH THE VIDEO http://bit.ly/jill_pastel1
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In this final layer, I add the fine details with very sharp pencils. For extremely fine hairs I find a waxy watercolour pencil is best. Adjust the values if you need to, strengthening the darks and lightening the lights, until you are happy with the contrast. The whiskers should be the final thing to add.
Know your limits At the stage where you’re looking for bits to fiddle with - stop! A painting can often be spoiled through overworking. Put it aside and look again in a couple of days – chances are it’s finished and just needs a signature.
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Workshop
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Pastel
Create a striking image with pastel on velour Jill Tisbury takes you through the process of developing fur and eye detail with these fascinating techniques
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JILL Northamptonshire, UK Jill has been drawing and painting since she could hold a pencil. She loves to experiment but her two main passions are pastel on velour and airbrushing (acrylics). www.jilltisbury.co.uk
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orking with pastels on velour is a bit of a “Marmite” subject. I often hear comments about the difficulty of creating detail on velour, but it’s one of my favourite surfaces to work on, so I hope to give another perspective on it and encourage you to have a go. Velour can take plenty of layers of pastel, allowing you to create rich colour and depth in your work. Also, the nature of the surface helps create the natural textures found in the great outdoors, so it’s a good choice for rendering wildlife. If you have difficulty adding in details on velour, I find that having sharp pencils really helps – so scalpel and sanding block at the ready! For this project, I chose this stunning reference image of a Chinese Leopard because I love the vibrant colours and the expression on the cat’s face. Typically I work from a digital reference because I can zoom in and out for detail, but I also print off colour and a greyscale copies – the greyscale is handy for checking tonal values. If you are going to paint from a photo, make sure you have the photographer’s permission. This image was taken by my talented husband at the Wildlife Heritage Centre in Kent, so a plate of homemade cakes secured the rights...
Transferring the image
You can sketch directly onto the velour, but it’s often very difficult to make corrections if you are not a confident drawer, so tracing from your sketch can be a good alternative. I use proportional dividers to ensure that I get the correct proportions, because I enlarged the image directly onto velour using a 2B pencil. I work from both colour and greyscale printouts, as well as a digital reference photo.
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Block in the background
I usually begin with the background – this allows me to better judge the colour balance of the main subject (plus I’d smudge the leopard if I painted it first!). I start with Burnt Umber 4 and Madder Brown 4 pastels to develop the darkest areas in the background, then I use Autumn Brown 1 for the lightest areas. I fill in the gaps with Conté Orange.
Materials
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Daler-Rowney Artists’ Soft Pastel Sticks Conté à Paris Pastel Pencils Caran d’Ache Pastel Pencil Faber-Castell Pitt Pastel Pencils Faber-Castell Albrecht Dürer Watercolour Pencil Drawing board and velour (sand colour) Low-tack masking tape Clay/colour shapers or blending stumps Proportional dividers (optional)
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Workshop Lian Las Vegas, USA A graduate of UC Berkeley and MIT, Lian has published six watercolour and Chinese painting books and taught painting workshops worldwide for 20 years. www.lianspainting.com
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hinese spontaneous-style painting is tremendously inspiring and can even help you to develop your watercolour skills. Using economic strokes, minimum colour and leaving white space are some of the most important methods I have learned from this painting style. When I lived in China, I mostly painted in a traditional ink and wash, freehand style using Chinese inks and brushes. Then when I studied for an architecture degree in the USA, watercolour classes were part of the curriculum. I found painting with watercolours much easier than traditional Chinese painting, and I couldn’t believe how well my paintings turned out. I realised that what I had learned from Chinese ink painting about controlling the water, ink and colours on the absorbent rice papers had really set me up for success in watercolours. Because of my experiences, I always suggest that watercolour students learn spontaneous-style painting techniques. Once you can control the absorbency and blending of colours on rice paper, you’ll have no difficulties in manipulating watercolour pigments and paper. Painting on raw rice paper is similar to painting on a paper towel, as the rice paper is very absorbent and blends the colours a lot. Therefore, you need to make each brushstroke bold, and resist the urge to hesitate. It isn’t a good idea to make corrections, because the more stokes you add, the worse it will look. Don’t expect to immediately create a masterpiece. We’ll start by learning how to load multiple colours into one brush, and practising the basic brushstrokes. You can practise using these techniques to paint flowers, leaves or stems. Then once you are confident in handling the water, ink and colour on rice paper, you can start to create the whole painting. Plenty of practise is the key for success with this beautiful style.
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Ma terials
The colours are water soluble, similar to watercolour pigments, while modern ink is made from permanent liquid ink that doesn’t require laborious grinding on ink stones. Raw/unsized rice paper (also called Shuan/ Xuan paper) is the most absorbent and therefore the best type of rice paper for spontaneous-style painting. n Marie’s Chinese Colour Tubes in Carmine, White, Rouge, Mineral Green, Yellow, Scarlet n Sumi ink
Ge t a grip
n Chinese painting brushes/ spontaneous brushes in extra-small, small, medium and large sizes n Raw/unsized rice paper, 34x45cm.
It is important to know how to hold Chinese brushes in the right way: grip it like a pencil first (pictured above left), then use another hand to pull the end of brush handle up to a straight position (above right). While painting, if the brush is perpendicular to the surface of the paper, it’s called a centre brushstroke. In contrast, holding the brush at an angle smaller than 90 degrees is referred to as a side brushstroke.
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Load multiple colours in a brush
Loading two or more colours in one brush is very useful in spontaneous-style painting. Dip a brush in water and then load white from its heel (bottom) to its middle, and Carmine from its tip to its middle. Next, tap the brush onto the palette several times to help mix the pigments, so that they blend gradually into each other in the middle.
Chinese inks
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Paint centre petals
Use a small brush to depict the petals of our first flower in white and Carmine, with the brush loaded with a blend of the two different coloured paints as shown in Step 1. Use a side brushstroke to paint several petals in a variety of sizes for the centre. Once the colours and water in the brush lose their potency, use the brush to paint some more, paler petals around the first group.
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Add perimeter petals
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Define more petals
Next, get a medium-sized brush and load it with the two colours the same way as before. Hold it sideways and point the darker tip towards the centre of the flower while painting the larger petals. Apply a variety of sizes of brushstrokes to depict the differences in the petals’ sizes, angles and the perspectives we can see.
Load more Carmine onto the tip of the medium brush and use a side brushstroke to break up the large petals with smaller ones too. Keep pointing the tip towards the centre of the flower.
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Bring out the centre
Dip a small brush into water, load Carmine on its heel, Rouge from its tip to middle and a little ink at the tip. Paint a few side brushstrokes in the centre, showing the darker inside petals.
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Workshop
Capture light and depth Peter Chan demonstrates a speedy technique for painting from your background to foreground, to capture the light and depth throughout a scene Peter Los Angeles, USA Peter lives in LA, where he works for Sony Pictures Animation. Previously he was at Pandemic Studios as a concept artist, and has also worked for DreamWorks. www.pixelp.tumblr.com
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reviously in this series, we looked at aspects of working on a painting as a whole, comparing value, colour and shapes with nearby elements. The process ensures that you don’t get bogged down in a specific area, but it can take more time and muddy your brush or paints if you’re not careful, especially if you’re painting outdoors or if time isn’t on your side. In this final lesson of the painting with gouache series, I’ll show you another approach to plein air gouache painting: the back-to-front method. The idea is to break down your scene from the lightest colour values in the furthest background to the darker foreground elements. You paint your background in first, moving forwards to the front of the scene (hence the method’s name). This process applies to larger objects and small details. First, put down quick and decisive marks and don’t fiddle too much with them, especially the lighter backgrounds. Second, remember distant elements are lighter in value and are less detailed, and gradually gain value contrast and more details the closer they are to the viewer. If you follow these guides, you’ll achieve a greater sense of light and depth quickly. This approach works especially well with early morning and later afternoon scenes, as well as on overcast days.
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Materials n Gouache paint n Holbein Gray No 1 gouache n Winsor & Newton Permanent White gouache n Strathmore watercolour paper n Flat and round brush
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Don’t overwork your background
First, sketch out or mentally break down your scene into the background, midground and foreground. Lay in simple shapes in washed-out colours to suggest the sky and distant city skyline. It’s very easy to get carried away with the details here, but it’s all about capturing the simple impression rather than copying exactly what you see. The muted white and light grey mix in this area will help it to sit back nicely when we add in the darker foreground colours later.
Gouache
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Lay in the middle and front
Continue to paint the midground elements – here the trees and street shadow – all the way to the foreground, bringing in more darks in the closer areas. Keep everything simple and abstract, so you can focus on creating a feeling of depth. Make a note of the paint mixture you use for each area, so that when you revisit an area, you can use a similar value.
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Reinforce the sense of depth
By blocking in key areas from background to foreground, there’s already a good sense of depth. Now you can add secondary elements such as the cars on the street to further suggest depth. In a similar way to how you painted the city, make the distant cars greyer and lighter, becoming darker, larger, more detailed and full of contrast the closer they are to the viewer.
Add another layer of detail
Once you’ve blocked in a large chunk of the composition, add in other details such as the palm trees. Again, start with the smaller and lightervalue trees at the very back and then paint forwards, with the trees becoming thicker and darker towards the front. Don’t worry about painting all of the trees’ leaves and details, as they’re not that close. Instead, find a simple, bold shape that communicates what the object is. Make the foreground much darker with a bit more detail too, to bring everything forward.
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Put in line elements
Finally, add more refined and smaller line elements, again making distant objects lighter. In this case, put in telegraph poles and wires, as well as midground cars. These are perfect to show depth, because they act as a directional element that lead the viewer’s eye back and forth through your composition.
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Workshop Sylvia Dovercourt, Harwich, Essex Sylvia exhibits in galleries throughout the UK and her work has been shown in many exhibitions including at the RA Summer Show. She has also had two exhibitions in Japan. www.sylviapaul.com
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Bringing still life to life
WATCH THE VIDEO http://bit.ly/pad_sp
Sylvia Paul shows how to create a “free” floral painting with vibrant colours and rich textures, using brushes and a palette knife 116 Paint & Draw Collection Vol.1
olour and texture offer a perfect way to give vibrancy to a floral still-life. This demonstration shows how I use acrylic paint to create an underpainting, which I then work over in oils with a palette knife. My paintings, both the oils and mixedmedia collage, are worked in layers. I find this approach brings real depth to the work. The setting up of the still life is important and I see this very much as part of the painting process. I can choose the flowers, their colour and shape, as well as the drapes and the composition. I will also prime some MDF board roughly with gesso to create a lovely textural surface before I start the painting. There are no preparatory drawings, I start the painting with a broad brush and vibrant acrylic colour, blocking in the shapes of the composition. The acrylic stage is worked freely, the aim being to create an interesting surface over which I can paint with oils. When the acrylic stage is dry, I switch to oils, applying the paint with a palette knife, to keep the work free. The oil paint picks up the texture created with the gesso and the acrylic. In some areas, the acrylic shows through, and in others it’s covered with thick oil paint. Throughout the process I work at speed, keeping the colours fresh. As I paint, I keep moving from one area to another, balancing the colour throughout the painting, trying not to overwork the details. I want the finished work to be alive with colour, expressive and bold.
Materials
Sylvia paints on 60x72cm MDF board primed with gesso. She uses a 4cm decorator’s brush for painting the acrylics, and a scratching-in brush.
Acrylics & oils
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Make some marks!
Using a viewfinder, I select the composition and with a broad brush I mark some of the key points. The objects in front and behind create depth. The viewfinder is two L-shaped pieces of card taped together to make the desired rectangle. I shut one eye and then select the view I want to paint. I choose an informal and close view, so the flowers extend beyond the picture-frame.
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Blocking in
I block in with vibrant colour, looking at the negative shapes between the objects, working confidently and quickly. The colours will provide a warm background to paint over later with the oils. Nothing is set in stone and I can refine the shapes as I work at every stage. Remember this is the underpainting, so I’m after something colourful that doesn’t need detail.
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G reat idea! Make a disposable palette! Put newspaper on the table, roll out the required amount of greaseproof paper, then tape down the corners. This is suitable for oil or acrylic.
More colours/texture
The white board is mostly covered. I add dark areas using some Paynes Grey for contrast. The paint is thicker and I scratch into it using an old brush that has dried up. The scratching-in provides more texture and I also use it to redraw some shapes. Because it is just scratching-in I won’t get any detail, which I don’t need. It’s another way of keeping the work free.
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Workshop
Draw heads from observation
Basic head shape
Try Chris Legaspi’s simple, effective techniques to draw realistic heads and faces from life or observation
Outer extremities
Chris Pasadena, California, USA Chris is a painter, illustrator, videogame concept artist and health nut with more than 20 years of drawing, painting and teaching experience. www.drawwithchris.com
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rawing the human head is a difficult and daunting task. This is especially true when drawing from life, because there is the added pressure of time. Before I draw, I always take the time to observe and process the shape, planes and rhythms. I always start my head drawings by capturing shape and gesture, by drawing the major shapes using big strokes and long marks. I can then position features using the vertical and horizontal centre of the face, making sure the angles are correct. Next, I build in the major planes: front, sides, and either top or bottom. The secondary planes I add are the brow, nose and beginning of the mouth. Then I add detail and refine the features. If I have time, I add tones and shading. I start by simplifying and massing in the shadow shape to give the illusion of a light source. Next, I add tones in the shadow to soften the edges and create a realistic form. Then I refine the tones and edges to increase realism. I start with halftones, adding a light wash and gradually building up their value. Finally, I add highlights and dark accents for contrast. One of my favourite exercises is a daily five-minute head sketch, to keep me motivated and consistent.
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Secondary shapes
Add planes, features, shading & tone
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Find the shape
Shape is important, as if the shape is designed well, you can get a likeness of your subject right away. First imagine a basic shape that captures the essence of the subject. Next, add the outer extremities of the head to refine the shape, then add secondary shapes.
Figure drawing
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Gestural/ rhythmic major shapes
Include the planes
Planes make a drawing feel like a 3D form. When you first look at a subject, imagine a basic cube with a front, sides, top and bottom planes. Then look for the secondary, subdivided planes and smaller shapes, such as the brow and the nose.
Box form = major planes: front,sides, top & bottom Natural rhythms in the face build planes & anatomy Secondary planes begin the construction process Clean up features and details
Refine planes until forms feel organic and natural
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Feel the rhythms
Rhythms are naturally occurring lines that usually follow anatomy to create a sense of gesture and movement. First, look at the outer points and try to connect them using big, sweeping gestural marks. Then look for rhythms and lines within the face. These help you to construct and eventually align and place features later in the drawing.
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