White flowers - lines and gladioli, chalks and oils, students artworks

At the moment, I am using colour as the theme for my oil painting classes, and recently the choice was...WHITE. I decided to have white flowers as reference, and headed to Ikea to pick up some lilies, though I was seriously diverted by the gladioli, so bought some of those too. They look rather tremendous at the bottom of my stairs! 

Jug of fakes!

I wouldn't usually go for fake flowers, but as I wanted students to work from life, this was a good solution as they wouldn't wilt (the flowers, not the students!).

The lovely finished painting by Julie B

I started by clamping each stem to the boards on the easels, then moved the lamps around to create as much light and shade as possible. I wanted to have plenty of variation, with only a limited amount of unshaded white. This meant that everyone had lots of opportunity to paint a multitude of different 'whites'. 

 

Charcoal study and finished painting by Ruth T

 

For the first session, all students did a tonal study in grey and white compressed charcoal, on tinted card (apart from Sara, who did a lovely colour pencil artwork instead).  

Gorgeous coloured pencil on tinted card, by Sara C

Doing a preliminary study gives us the space to understand the subject, in the manner of solving a puzzle, and helps iron out some of the tricky pitfalls, without the added difficulties of dealing in colour. 

A delicious pastel tonal study by LM

Students had up to three further sessions to complete an oil study of their flower. 

A-M's home set-up showing the lily clamped to her board on the right, with the underpainting on the left. 

Lovely pastel tonal study by Bronagh B

Dramatic tonal study by PC

Look at the difference a strong background colour makes to the perceived value of the white petals. Lovely painting by Marie P

The most dramatic paintings were the ones which had a strong background. This meant that the different tones and shades within the petals looked subtle and pale - when the background was also pale, the petals risked looking overly colourful. Great work, with excellent amounts of suffering in the name of art!! 

For info on workshops please email julie@juliedouglas.co.uk 

Julie's studio is above the pop-up shop in lovely Comber - 

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Julie+Douglas+Art+Courses,+Belfast+Academy+of+Realist+Art/@54.5504618,-5.7486225,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m6!3m5!1s0x48610b29599d173d:0x3095b2d4c8c4e7c1!8m2!3d54.5504587!4d-5.7460422!16s%2Fg%2F11f5q8zld9

Charcoal and oil wipe out technique, gladioli and wild garlics

Hoorah, the buds are peeping out and spring is trying its best to appear!! So my eye has been attracted to plants. For the first time in my life, I bought some artificial flowers, so that my oil painting students could paint lilies without having to see them wilt. The only creepy thing is that the lilies themselves were fairly identical.. but they served an excellent purpose. I also succumbed to some rather splendid stems of artificial gladioli, and did a charcoal study as part of my demonstration. 

Previously, I drew some wild garlic, photographed while on a trip to Cavan with friends. We walked down a rarely-used path and the sides were banked with vast swathes of wild garlic - the aroma was wonderful. 

I did a charcoal study first, see demos below, then an oil painting. 

I began the oil painting in the same way as the charcoal, by loading the canvas with raw umber paint, wiping out the light areas, adding more ray umber where needed and wiping out again. It's a lovely soft process, allowing the work to remain blurry and unfocussed in a different way to a purely additive technique. 

After the underpainting, I painted over it with a Grisaille...

 

...then painted over the grisaille in colour. 

 

Below, the finished painting, with two layers of colour, over the Grisaille. 

For info on workshops email julie@juliedouglas.co.uk 

 

Oil painting, 'Vernon', step by step

There are so many photos here that I thought I'd show you the finished painting first! (to see the preparatory stages scroll below to the previous posts). I had two weeks from starting the canvas to my deadline, and while I thought I wouldn't manage it as I was teaching during the same period, I decided to go for it. 

Vernon, fully finished oil painting. 

The initial stages are always hideous-looking. The best way to describe it is that it's an act of faith. We paint towards how it WILL look, seeing everything as part of the greater process.  I transferred a line drawing trace from my pencil drawing onto canvas, which gave me a blotchy placement guide, then did a base 'wash' layer to lay in some tones, going very lightly on the face, only on the shadow areas. This is the stage where the amount of work ahead becomes dreadfully apparent. Gulp. 

First stage, not looking pretty, but a start. 

 Next evening I put in the flesh areas, the first layer of colour. The face and hands took about two and a half hours and were done in one sitting. Colour was laid in small 'tiles', and not rushed.

First layer of flesh

Between classes next day I whacked on the first layer of the coat... still 'tiling' but with larger strokes. 

                                  ...and scrubbed in some background colour (see below).

Saturday night and I had to address 'the hat', aaaargh...! Even in the drawing stage this had been a challenge, and I spent a few hours redrawing with pencil on the canvas, then layering in the pattern using raw umber before painting the lighter chunks in between the stripes. Then I slathered on some beardy tones. 

Huge palette, tiny dog..?! Faithful little Minnie keeping an eye on me.

I gave the beard a second look, and decided it looked like it had been stuck on.. So I darkened it a bit... 

 ...then decided I needed more flesh tones to work beneath it so painted more shadow-colours on top (see below). It looks like the photos are out of order, but they are not. So, I painted a beary area, then let it go by painting over it - always be prepared to remove, rethink and repaint.

I then gave the flesh (face and hand) a second (final) layer. 

Then it was Friday, so I crammed in a few hours before the Friday Night Life class, and tackled the Christmas foliage behind the head. Once I got into the swing of it, this was fairly quick, and quite satisfying/a relief to cover a large expanse of canvas.  

This pic also shows the chunky blocked-in hat.

Saturday was the Marathon day. I did 12 hours straight, with a one hour break in the middle for a cuppa tea and a chat. I painted a second layer on the coat... 

...and after dinner, which my son kindly brought to the studio for me (what a star!),

Dinner, cooked and delivered!!

 I could put the hat off no longer... 

I worked from the top, down. 

The 'secret' to working on something complex like this lies in what you're listening to. All day I'd had the BBC iPlayer in the background. I'd had the final of masterchef on, several episodes of 'The Twinstitute' (I can only have documentaries on, otherwise I can't paint!) and for the hat it was two hilarious programes by Billy Connolly, so I actually laughed my way through it! By 11pm I'd had enough and packed up. This is how it looked - all done bar the beard and the baubles on the left. 

I took Sunday off as I was tired.. And Monday was deadline day. I worked on the beard...

...darkened the background, tweaked the 'join' between beard, eyebrow and background, and completed the baubles. Just in time for the deadline! PHEW!! 

Upcoming workshops with Julie in Belfast Academy of Realist Art: Friday Night Life drawing, 1st Feb  6 - 8pm

Children's workshop, portrait workshop, pet painting workshop. 

April 8th - 12th: Paul Foxton gives his Munsell Colour Mixing workshop.

For info on all workshops please email julie@juliedouglas.co.uk