Glendalough Solitude

Round Towers are found in many parts of Ireland, usually associated with former monastic settlements. It was once thought they were built as places of refuge from the raiding Vikings over a 1200 years ago. After all they were built like small castles and the only entrance was 10 feet above ground level, accessed by a ladder. Although the monks may have tried to escape the raiders in the towers most experts now think the towers were built primarily as bell towers. Monastic settlements were more than just places of worship. The temporal welfare of the occupants needed to be catered for so this meant a lot of agricultural and industrial activity. A bell to announce times for the beginning and end of various activities throughout the day was essential for a well ordered society and these settlements could cover large areas and have many occupants. One of the best preserved towers is in Glendalough, County Wicklow. I have included it in this scene. By the way the reason why the entrance was so high up was because the towers were built without a foundation so the bottom of the tower was a solid lump of masonry, up to the height of the doorway, to stop it falling over.

Like the last painting (here) this scene was sketched in with dry paint (unmixed with solvent or medium). Later colours are added on top and a certain amount of mixing happens to alter these colours. Its easy to control if the paint is kept dry. The more you work it, the more mixing happens.

Still using just 3 colours and white only, no black. The colours are Raw Sienna, Raw Umber and Prussian Blue.  White Spirits was used initially to spread the dry paint at the sketching stage and at the end to paint the fine lines of the trees and building details.

Here is the video of the painting process. See you soon.

Home through the fields

The kids are back in school and many in rural areas will take advantage of the good weather and bright evenings to take a ‘short-cut’ home through the fields. The blackberries are ripe and there will be many a crab apple tree to add a sharp bite to the sweetness of the berries. When we were children we were told it was OK to eat the wild fruit before Oiche Samhain (Hallowe’en night) because on that night the evil spirits went around the countryside ‘pee-ing’ on the fruit. A bit of folklore to ensure we didn’t consume anything after its ‘use before date’.

This is a small (11″x9″), quick painting even by my standards, and took about an hour to complete. It seems easier to try new techniques on a small painting. Here I sketched in the general scene in dry (no solvent or medium) unmixed paint. The later additions of paint had solvent added and blended with the paint already added. For example, in the sky, white with a little White Spirits added, was painted over the dry blue and umber paint to pick up the colour. I would normally paint the initial colours with loads of solvent which, when it evaporated, would not be inclined to mix with paint laid on top. The method in this painting reversed the procedure and worked well, giving smoother blends with less texture. This was OK in this small painting as the canvas texture poking through might be a little too rough relative to the small surface area of the painting.

3 colours used, Raw Sienna, Raw Umber and Prussian Blue. White was also used but no black. There was no medium used, just solvent (White Spirits).

Here’s the video of the painting process. See you soon.

Coppiced Trees

Coppicing, in case you don’t know, is a practice of woodland management, whereby the thees are harvested of their branches and the stump left to produce more wood. Its an ancient practice in Europe to produce renewable wood for all sorts of purposes from wattles for housing and baskets to charcoal production.

This is a small painting, 11″x8″, and was painted in about an hour. 3 colours are used, Yellow Ochre, Raw Umber and Prussian Blue. White is also used, but no black. Solvent (White Spirits) is used at the beginning and at the end, in fine lines. Otherwise its a dry painting method. Not using black is something I’m experimenting with at the moment. I’m also interested in producing a soft image which is strong and vibrant. In the past I made strong images with light and shade and black was a big part of this technique. Because there is no black used here, I’m trying to give strength by having a rough textured surface in this soft image. If you click on the above image you will see an enlarged version and note the underpainting is not completely covered by final layers of paint giving a ‘daubed’ effect.

‘Oiling out’ is important as the underpainting is very matt and when dry, this gloss difference between underpainting and final paint layers is too distracting. The layer of oil medium unifies the surface.

Here is the video of the painting process. See you soon.

Flood Plane

Traditional watercolour artists do not use black paint. The technique is reliant on the paper colour illuminating the transparent layers of paint. The highlights are devoid of paint and the deepest shadows have the heaviest paint but are still transparent. I’ve borrowed many of these watercolour techniques in recent oil paintings (using solvent in place of water) so it was only a matter of time before I would also stop using black. Its only a temporary phase I’m going through though, I think, as there are going to be times in the coming winter when black will be required.

In the accompanying video the dark handled brush is a round and its used from start to finish without much cleaning between mixes. The ‘dry’ paint is wiped off on a tissue paper and occasionally a little solvent is used in the cleaning. This illustrates that my colours ‘evolve’ through stages of light and dark coloured mixes. For example, the initial blue of the sky is lightened to become the clouds on the horizon. This mix is then darkened with more blue (Prussian) and red (Burnt Sienna) to become the clouds. This grey is then changed with a little yellow (Yellow Ochre) to become the distant trees. The same mix is then changed with more blue and yellow to become the nearer trees. In effect the same 3 colours are used throughout the entire painting, only the proportions of each colour changes. The result is harmony.

The light handled brush is a wide filbert brush (No. 12) and its used only to blend the colours, especially the sky colours. A ‘rigger’ type of nylon brush is used for fine lines using a ‘wet’ mix of solvent (White Spirits) only.

The painting is 16″x12″ and took about 2 hours to complete in a single session. There are 3 colours plus white used (no black).

Here is the painting video. See you soon.

Long Road into Winter

Almost by accident I omitted using black in this painting. It was on the palette so I expected I would need it at some stage. As it turned out it was not required at any stage through the painting process. This happens a lot with painting, you plan a course of action and things change and you are taken on a completely different track.

In the next painting, the plan was not to include black and this I managed to do. I will post this tomorrow. In the meantime have a look at this painting.

Cool Winds of September

The landscape is parched after a long dry summer and now with frost expected later this week it will have a definite wintery look to it. This painting is about the transition. The cool winds are tugging at the last leaves and before long, bare branches and the blues and browns of winter will prevail.

When I started using Alkyd Fast Drying Oils I was very conscious of the danger to my brushes. Even after an hour the Alkyd paint on an unattended brush begins to dry. I decided to reduce the number of brushes I was using in a painting just in case I left one aside for too long, with disastrous results. After a few paintings I decided that the most versatile brush was a standard large round. In this painting, from start to finish, I used a No. 12 round. This is about a half inch in diameter with a slight taper. This single brush was not cleaned between colours, the excess paint was wiped off, but the brush was kept dry.

This suits my working method which involves letting a single paint mix evolve through the different stages of the painting. Of course it only works with a limited number of starting colours. I’m using 3 and this ensures that the colours on the palette do not turn into that dirty brown which seems to appear when too many different colours get mixed together. I’m using no liquid, either solvent or medium, at this stage in recent paintings. This helps in my quest to be less graphic and more painterly as mentioned in a recent post.

In this painting a small ‘rigger’ type nylon brush was used with plenty of White Spirits for the fine lines. Also, I briefly used a No. 12 Filbert Bristle to blend the sky colours.

Here’s the video of the painting process. See you soon.