Thursday 27 October, Palette Knife painting with Angela

This week Angela stepped up to tell us about her 4-day course at Newlyn Art School with Maggie O’Brien, using a palette knife. Before getting to the knife techniques, some general points were made, such as advice to do a drawing first to  get the feel of the subject and avoiding painting direct from photos - though these could be used for reference later.  In the drawing just get down the lightest lights and darkest darks, whilst considering composition and what you want to say in your picture, omitting features not contributing to that.

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Angela then turned to the palette and showed how to squeeze out quite small amounts of Alkyd oil paint in limited colours and carefully mix these on the palette, using the square end palette knife (or digger).  Many new colours could be produced from very few in this way. In doing this, she showed how to manipulate the digger to get a variety of marks and put them on the board to see what emerged. ​

Some of the works that Angela has trialled.

NOW SOME OF THE RESULTS BY OUR MEMBERS TODAY.
The first three have been sent in by Angela, who says, "All three did them so quickly and so beautifully.  They are by Hillary, Ian and Jill.

Diana says, "excellent morning, thanks to Angela.  Must practise one-stroke marks, more difficult than it looks.

From Sally P, "What a great day. Lots of new ideas to take  on board - and remember!  The first is of a flooded river down Wittons Lane, Hoxne.  The second a seascape of somewhere in Cornwall.

Here are Avril's who says, "Good day today.  I learnt a lot."

From Harriet, who says, "I really enjoyed Angela's take on oil paints."  Her two attempts are:  Looking down at Barmouth Beach, and View of Mountain.

Sally L has done one picture from today's workshop and says, 'Thank you Angela.'  The second is a picture from last week of the apples that she brought in for the still life set up,  (She says, "They were such larger than life apples that I couldn’t just eat them, and they sat very still!")

This is a second one from Ian.  (See his first above.)

Here's what Sally T did today, in what she calls a very enjoyable session

Lesley says, 'We all thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and learnt a lot.  Thank you Angela for an inspiring tutorial !  The first effort shows a very depleted reservoir in the Peak District this summer.   My second painting, done after lunch  shows part of the coast of Galloway in January this year. 
​She has also sent in Josie's painting below  and says she loves its energy!

A few members who did not participate in the workshop submitted work on their own projects.  
June completed a very colourful watercolour of autumn leaves.  Les Bragg has been continuing on the mixed media painting we saw last week.

Finally, a couple of reminders:
1/  The oil workshop with James Power takes place on 10 November and there are still some places remaining.  For full details, go to Messages or click here.
2/   It's Hannah's turn to do the blog next week, so please remember to send your work to her.  

Best wishes to all for the forthcoming week, and thank you all for your contributions today.  Noreen.