After Mel Stabin watercolour

When I can't paint a subject of my own I like to paint the work of painters I like, in this case Mel Stabin the American watercolourist. I like this loose style that's akin to Charles Reid and his work, a painter I use to illustrate watercolour techniques in the classes I teach. To avoid spending hours trying to get an exact replica it pays to set a time limit, in this case an hour.

Still life. Roses.

Roses 19cm x19cm oil on canvas.

Roses from the garden either hanging behind from summer or just arrived for spring, either way I believe they're better off in a jar judging by the weather that's on the way.

Lesson 3. Texture.

The following is the lesson for painting with acrylics course and is as follows

Lesson 3
Techniques

This week we will look at some of the creative watercolour techniques of John Blockley and use his painting as a reference for exploring watercolour techniques using acrylic paints.
Colours: Cobalt blue, Ultramarine blue, Cadmium red, yellow ochre, burnt umber and white. Soft brush, wax candle, blade, and a palette knife.
I. Lightly plan the drawing but only pencil in the main 4 foreground trees. Indicate the fence and collapsed wall and path. To create a resist, use the candle to work within these shapes, trees rocks, fence and path. It is best to press too hard rather than not enough as we can always scrape paint off back to the wax if there is plenty on.
2. Work a really light wash of cobalt and cadmium red over the background for the distant sky. When this is damp indicate distant trees with cobalt blue mix a little deeper than the sky.
3. When the sky is dry work on the foreground with the warm colours. Paint in more distinct background trees to suggest middle distance.
4. Using darker mixes of burnt umber, cobalt and a palette knife paint in the foreground trees with sideways strokes from the outer edge into the tree and soften some edges with a wet brush. Do one tree at a time. Vary the dark mixes with burnt umber and ultramarine or green, get a little dark variety.
5. Strengthen the foreground working on dark areas around the wall and suggest the path etc. Work wet in wet wet on dry get a variety of interesting edges. Use the end of the brush in wet paint to suggest grasses, blot out part of the wet paint to get a variety of tones, do this over the rocks if they are becoming lost. Flick and spatter colour to suggest small flowers stone or leaves, nature is far from neat.
5. Start to add some accents. When the paint is dry try scraping some of the colour back and adding more wax or a different tone over what you have gone. Use a small blade or knife edge and lay some dark grasses, especially where the land meets the sky. Lighten the distant path with a dilute white mix. Thicker white can be used on the lower part of the sky to emphasise the trees more.

Have another go at home remember, wax resist, scraping back, spattering working wet in wet and wet on dry will give you a variety of textures and edges, experiment, that’s where discoveries are made.

The Departed

Acrylic on canvas 13cm x 9cm

I came across the work of an artist I thought were by John Singer Sargent, great stuff. I love finding the work of a painter I've never heard of whose work I really like.

Carbon pencil 10cm x 10cm
Giovanni Boldini (December 31, 1842 - July 11, 1931) was an Italian genre and portrait painter, belonging to the Parisian school. According to a 1933 article in Time magazine, he was known as the "Master of Swish" because of his flowing style of painting.Boldini was born in Ferrara, the son of a painter of religious subjects, and went to Florence in 1862 to study painting, meeting there the realist painters known as the Macchiaioli. Their influence is seen in Boldini's landscapes which show his spontaneous response to nature, although it is for his portraits that he became best known. He attained great success in London as a portraitist. From 1872 Boldini lived in Paris, where he became a friend of Edgar Degas. He also became the most fashionable portrait painter in Paris in the late 19th century, with a dashing style of painting which shows some Impressionist influence but which most closely resembles the work of his contemporaries John Singer Sargent and Paul Helleu. He was nominated commissioner of the Italian section of the Paris Exposition in 1889, and received the Legion d'honneur for this appointment. He died in Paris in 1931.
http://www.giovanniboldini.org/

Liverpool painting No.129. Goodison Road

21cm x 14cm acrylic on canvas

Watercolour Studies of Cornwall

Kynanve Cove 21cm x 14cm watercolour on 140lb paper
Cornish Lane 15cm x 15cm sketchbook