96. Going Somewhere

Landscape, oil on wood panel, 4" x 4"

I knocked this out before going off to a meeting. I used a mix of brushes and a painting knife. The title comes from my husband's comment: "Well, it certainly looks as though it's going somewhere!" 

84. Colour Mixes: Oxide of Chromium

Oxide of Chromium (PG17)

I went to town on this one and added five extra mixes. Interestingly, I avoided it for years thinking it was dull but was intrigued that it was regularly used by Shirley Trevena whose work is far from dull. Once I tried it, I understood and have since used it in both my UK and Caribbean scenes.

If I were to describe the way this pigment interacts with the others, I'd say it has good manners, unlike say phthalo blue or magenta which have to hog the conversation and be the centre of attraction - I still love them though!

81. Colour Mixing - Two More Sheets

Phthalocyanine Blue Lake (PB15:3)

Cobalt Teal (PB36)

Hi Everyone, here's a little colour to brighten your day. I heard a good tip - if when you do these colour sheets you spot the same colour on two sheets, use the cheaper pigment for your mixes.

77. Colour Mixing - Five More Sheets

Magenta (PR122)

Call me crazy, but... I am loving doing these colour charts.  The colours are so delicious, I think I can taste them! If only the camera could capture the sumptuous colour, transparency and vibrancy of some of these mixes, especially on the Magenta and the Ultramarine Blue sheets! The colours are pretty close but the tints below were much more subtle than shown here.

As I mentioned previously, I'm also discovering many other popular colours/mixes whilst doing them such as Burnt Sienna, Cobalt Violet(!!) and Flesh Tint - my flesh is a different tint though, LOL! A big surprise to me was the Magenta/Atrament Black mix to the far right; maybe I didn't use enough AB but I chose not to change it as it produced a column of super violets which are different to all the others on the sheet.

All the tints so far have been created with the very opaque Titanium White No.2 (PW6/PW4) but I'm curious to try them with something more transparent like pure Zinc White (PW4), particularly for these two sheets.

Ultramarine Blue (PB29) - Yummy!

I dropped the Unbleached Titanium, Permanent Orange, Phthalo Blue and Phthalo Green for Napthol Red, Cadmium Red, Transparent Oxide Yellow and Raw Umber as that's what I'm  more likely to mix with UB. It also meant that I didn't need to have 20+ columns. 

 

Unbleached Titanium Dioxide (PW6.1)

Such an initially boring colour but the range of tints produced are just wonderful. I'm so glad I did this sheet as it produced lovely, velvety, dusty hues, again more subtle than shown but distinct colours nonetheless.

Lemon Yellow (PW31) - Dig out your blue gloves!

This has a really low tinting strength so it is perfect for warming and lightening colours when straight white would deaden them. You can easily see the stronger pigments; however, note that Magenta is much stronger than Manganese Violet - I had to use only a smidgeon of Magenta as otherwise its mighty strength would have murdered the Lemon Yellow.

Bright Yellow Lake (PY3)

Looks acidic but it's really a beautifully yellow yellow.  Can I say that? :D  Now I've added Old Holland Caribbean Blue (a favourite of Dreama Tolle Perry) as I use it an awful lot in my Caribbean scenes; not that you'd know as the tube is hardly dented - another powerful pigment.

Please do comment on whether or not you are finding these helpful. I have lumped these five together so that anyone interested can compare them more easily.  I will replace the photographs when we have better weather... and I'll post some real paintings soon.  

Thank you so much for visiting; I'm off to work now. Happy painting!

76. Colour Mixing: RT Rembrandt - Ultramarine Blue

Oil on paper, 9" x 12"

I could have done with using a smidge more of the red in the second column as it looks very similar to the fourth column. In the third column, I discovered Turmeline Green (I was given this in a pack of three free samples a year or so ago; it's by Schminke Mussini). In the fourth column, I got lovely soft greys, a bit like Payne's Grey.

The mixes on the top row are pure Ultramarine Blue, UB with a touch of Permanent Red Medium, UB with a touch of Permanent Yellow Light and UB with a touch of both PRM and PYL; in all of the mixes that particular 'primary' is dominant.  Going down each column, I've used increasing amounts of white to create tints.  I used the same tiny palette knife.

75. Colour Mixing: RT Rembrandt - Permanent Red Medium

Oil on paper, 9" x 12"

Again, I discovered some great mixes, useful for flesh tones, amongst other things. In the third column, I got very good Indian and Venetian Reds and in the fourth column, I discovered taupe, which took me back to the early '80s when I worked for a textile company who regularly used that colour in their fabric dyes.

The mixes on the top row are pure Permanent Red Medium, Permanent Red Medium with a touch of Permanent Yellow Light, PRM with a touch of Ultramarine Blue and PRM with a touch of both PYL and UB; on each chart that particular 'primary' is dominant in each of the mixes.  Going down each column, I've used increasing amounts of white to create tints.  I used the same tiny palette knife.

74. Colour Mixing: RT Rembrandt - Permanent Yellow Light

Oil on paper, 9" x 12"

I've been creating colour mixing charts in oil (as per Monsieur Schmid, even though I don't own his wonderful-looking book); it is feeding my methodical side (nerdy? OCD? :D :D :D). Seriously though, I do these every few years to remind myself how many mixes can be obtained from just a few key colours. This time, I used my bargain pack of RT Rembrandt primaries plus white.

The mixes on the top row are pure Permanent Yellow Light, Permanent Yellow Light with a touch of Permanent Red Medium, PYL with a touch of Ultramarine Blue and PYL with a touch of both PRM and UB; on each chart that particular 'primary' is dominant in each of the mixes.  Going down each column, I've used increasing amounts of white to create tints.

I used a tiny palette (painting) knife to mix and apply the paint swatches. The number of possible variations never ceases to amaze me.  (I will also post the red and blue palettes.)

68. Day Twenty-Eight - Rose

Still Life, oil on Pebeo canvas board, 10cm x 10cm (approx. 4" x 4")

The beady-eyed among you will have noticed that the date of this post has changed.  I quickly painted the WIP below this morning and posted it under Day 28 then back-dated the schedule date to the 28th. It's been bothering me since then as, in truth, I was not able to do any painting at all on the 28th so it now shows the date it was actually produced.

I'm going to try to knock out one for Day 29 and post it shortly while there is still some daylight left.

Work in progress

I wanted to post something for Day 28 and had only got this far with a rose from a bouquet I received.  Better post and photograph very soon!

67. Day Twenty-Five: Another Whinlatter Landscape

Landscape, W&N alkyd oil on gesso-primed hardboard, 4" x 4"

Wow! Day 25! How are you all getting on? I had only a short time to paint this morning so knocked this out. I started out with a paintbrush but was taking too long so reached for the palette knife to get it done faster. A few weeks ago, I covered the support with Quinacridone Gold acrylic then put it to one side; you can see it peeping through the sky area and also where my initials are scratched out. 

Have a great weekend everyone.  xx

65. Day Twenty-Two: High Street, Black River

Oil on Pebeo canvas board, 10cm x 10cm (approx. 4" x 4")

Good morning everyone, eight days to go!  This is a scene that I regularly see when I'm in JA.  It is the High Street in Black River which runs alongside the sea. So what does that make this painting? A seascape? A landscape? An urban seascape? :D:D:D

This morning, the plan was simply to knock out a quick and loose(!) painting so I chose a palette knife and a small support. However, I get so lost when I'm doing any type of art that, without realising, it ended up with much more detail than I'd intended. Never mind, we've got something for Day 22 and that's all that matters, isn't it?

I'm working on a way of putting my initials into these little paintings less obviously as I don't want them to be a distraction but my colour shapers are too thick. Maybe a darning needle? Still thinking...

Have a good day everyone and thank you for visiting my blog, painters and non-painters alike. xx

63: Day Eighteen: YS Falls

Waterfall, oil on Pebeo canvas board, 10cm x 10cm (approx. 4" x 4")

I did this quickly to avoid missing out on posting yet another day. (I've been in hospital so am somewhat out of kilter and hoping to catch up soon.)

In case you're interested...
YS Falls is in Santa Cruz, Jamaica.  It's a beautiful, peaceful spot where you can take the family, swing across and/or have a swim and it consistently gets good reviews.  To gain access, you park then travel on an open-topped, long vehicle. (Sorry, I don't know the right name but it's very safe and you shouldn't feel ill going to the top.) The tour guides are polite and helpful; they'll take photographs if you ask and won't hassle you.  So pack a picnic, your shades and 'cozzie' and give it a visit.

Initially, I used fast-drying alkyd white for the waterfall but my husband couldn't tell what it was supposed to be so I scraped it off and re-applied it - no better.  After scraping it a few times, I remembered my Robert Gamblin Radiant White!  What a difference!

For the dangly foliage that drops down to the water, I scraped back to the warm yellow imprimatura layer.  I have quite a few colours but for each painting only normally choose a handful (as you would with pastels) - my choice is different every time - but, as I wanted to complete this quickly, I used pre-mixed greens.

Colours:   MH Permanent Sap Green and Schminke Atrament Black (for the deep darks), MH Oxide of Chromium, MH Bright Green Lake and Schminke Turmaline Green (free sample!).  Also, MH Burnt Umber, MH Unbleached Titanium, MH Yellow Ochre, W&N Naples Yellow Light, Gamblin Radiant Blue (to cool the water; also in the leaves directly above the fall) and, as mentioned, Radiant White.  The water at YS Falls is very clear but that's not obvious as I used RB and YO, opaque colours - very nice, but opaque nonetheless.

Phew! Can I go back to bed please?!

62. Day Fourteen: Road to Harpenden

Landscape, oil on acrylic-primed Pebeo canvas board,

10cm x 10cm (approx. 4" x 4")

Good morning fellow painters, I didn't envisage having time to paint today but woke up at 4:30am and, still wide awake an hour later, decided to do this little study using only a palette knife to apply the paint.  It's fiddly to work so small with a knife but, like most things, I guess it just takes a little practise.

The colour you can see peeping around the edges of the image is Quinacridone Magenta acrylic.  It was left over from something else so I used it as an imprimatura layer on a few little supports.

Off to work shortly; wishing you all a successful day.

57. Day Four: Homeward Bound

Landscape, oil on Pebeo canvas board, 10cm x 10cm (4" x 4")

I rapidly painted this but was disappointed because I missed posting it to Leslie Saeta's site in the requisite time but then realised it could still be posted to my blog as that is always available!  This is one of the great things about Leslie's challenge - it makes us more productive than usual.  

The rather straight white line was applied with a palette knife but the rest of the painting was done using a couple of Monarch brushes (lovely!).

No worries, although the original image was taken on my phone on a rainy evening, I wasn't driving at the time!  I'm off to work now.  Happy painting folks.  :)

54. Autumn in Blighty

Landscape, W&N Griffin Alkyd oil paint on Arches oil paper, trimmed to 8" x 8"

Before trimming (9" x 9")

This is to be cut and displayed on mount board so I used alkyd oils for speedy drying. It needed an autumnal look to it and nearly all my paintings end up predominantly blue (as opposed to red or yellow) so I used the 'Zorn' palette (Cadmium Red, Yellow Ochre, Titanium White and Black*). I was very pleased with the nuances of colour achievable, including pale yellow and some good greens.

*  I wanted a black that was completely transparent so I mixed together Alizarin Crimson and Phthalocyanine Green. I thoroughly mixed it out with a small palette knife on a transparent party plate then tested it by adding white to ensure it was not biased to either red or green.  This gave me a very deep, luscious black without any chalkiness at all and resulted in a darker mix than the equally good Ultramarine Blue/Burnt Umber (or Burnt Siena) mix.

I agree that most mixes should still show a hint of their components but if I'm mixing two colours to get a third colour, the plastic plate has two benefits. I can turn it upside down to check that the two pigments have been blended completely - no streaks at the bottom of the mix - and I can also lay the 'palette' down onto a surface which is the same colour as the support I'm using to give an accurate reflection of how the paint will look on the actual painting.  My ground colour is often black, an umber (see previous post) or white so I usually have at hand a second support in the current colour placed under the transparent plate. Some artists paint their support and then the bottom of their glass or perspex palette; the party plate is less hassle and there is no clean-up or scraping off afterwards.

Phew!  If you've read this far, please will you let me know if all this information is helpful or if you'd prefer a shorter post? I'm happy to continue sharing my findings with you if you wish.

(Btw, Santa brought me a lovely present which I'll share with you soon!)

Happy New Year to you and your families.  x

53. Pink House, Cumbria

Landscape, oil on Pebeo canvas board, 30cm x 30cm (approx. 12" x 12")

Hello again, everyone.  I'm sorry I have not posted since mid-November (shocking!). Although I've done a fair bit of artwork, it was nothing I could post.  Some of it is for a friend's upcoming wedding, the last bit of which I finished yesterday so am now able to return to my own work for a while.

You may remember the underpainting above, done for Day 29 of Leslie Saeta's September challenge.  A week or so ago, I quickly blocked in some of the colour (middle image) but had to abandon it again until last night when I painted the distant mountains, tree, gate, road and finally the house.  I also tidied up the background trees and the dry stone wall.  I had originally shortened the fence (which in real life runs behind the gate and past the tree) but eventually ditched it altogether to achieve a more open space.

The only four colours used are from one of my major bargains - a pack of Royal Talens Rembrandt oils: Permanent Red Medium, Permanent Yellow Light, Ultramarine Deep and Titanium White.  I've heard it said that Rembrandt paints can be too oily but I get around that by simply using less medium than I would with, say, W&N paints.  My mix is Refined Linseed Oil, Stand Oil and Gamsol OMS at a ratio of 2:1:1 (Carol Marine's recipe).  I buy Gamsol from Stuart R. Stevenson on Clerkenwell Road in London - my first bottle was a free sample!  This time, I used two Liquitex brushes (soft, synthetic and great with oils) and a tiny palette knife for the pink blossom in the trees.

Anyway, thank you for visiting my blog and for reading this far!  I wish you a very happy Christmas and a prosperous and colour-filled 2014.  xx

50. Bluefields - Stop the Car!

Seascape, oil on Daler Rowney Canvas, 12" x 4"

This is a view of Bluefields Beach that we pass on the way to Montego Bay.  I have stopped to photograph it so many times over the years that now, every time we approach it, the gentleman who drives us automatically asks me if I'd like to stop and take a photograph! :D
I painted the yellow boat with a palette knife so the paint would go down nice and thick.

 

I meant to photograph my pen and ink drawing but only realised once I'd got this far with the paint.

46. Trees on Whinlatter Pass

Trees on Whinlatter Pass, oil on W&N canvas board, 7" x 5"

This painting went into Leslie Saeta's '30 in 30' challenge nude!  I had only managed to finish the under-painting by the time the challenge was over.  It's done now though and I laid all the colour on top using a small diamond-shaped palette knife for speed.  I have corrected the background shape as it looked like a line of trees instead of a mountain range.  My initials were put in using a colour shaper which, believe it or not, was the fiddliest part.  Have a good weekend everyone! 

24. Cross from Palette Knife Scrapings

 

This was created from the remains of paint on my wooden palette (which you can see peeping through bottom left).  We'd been doing the Easter backdrop so crosses were on my mind.  I'll also post my contribution to the backdrop.