Leisure Painter
April 2007
Each month laterlife.com presents a feature from either The Artist
or its sister publication, Leisure Painter.
Leisure Painter inspires, guides and encourages
beginners and improvers with step-by-step instruction, as well as
general advice on ways to develop and progress. Experienced and
popular tutors set projects, describe their own working methods
and offer helpful tips and ideas
www.leisurepainter.co.uk
LET'S START WITH ART IS AIMED AT BEGINNERS AND APPEARS EACH
MONTH. WHY NOT HAVE A GO AT THIS STEP-BY-STEP DEMONSTRATION?
SPRING FLOWERS
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Brush
• No. 12 round sable (or use a sable/synthetic
watercolour brush)
Colours |
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Derwent Watercolour Pencils
• 69 gunmetal
• 48 May green
• 45 mineral green
• 25 light violet
• 32 spectrum blue
• 2 lemon cadmium
• 5 deep cadmium
• 10 chrome orange
• 27 brown ochre
• 68 blue grey
Paper
• HP Watercolour paper 140lb (or you can use a heavier
weight)
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Step 1
Position the guidelines using gunmetal and May green.
Water-soluble pencils are a wonderful medium to take outdoors. They are
clean, convenient and versatile.
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It is possible to
create textures that would be difficult to achieve using
traditional watercolour methods and, for that reason, I would
like to encourage you to use them.They are also a good medium to
use if you are not experienced in painting but would like to
produce a painterly look to your drawings.
Step 2
1. Still using gunmetal, firmly shape the
shadow side of the church and position the distant
trees. Then go over the entire church using light violet
and position the two larger trees in the same colour. |
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2 Use May green and a loose scribble technique
to introduce the foliage.
3 Shade in the sky with blue grey but be careful
to leave some light in the sky where no pencil is
applied. Leave rather more than you plan as the colour
always moves into the lighter area when the water is
applied
Step 3
1. Go over the sky with spectrum blue then bring
some blue down into the light area. Add a little of the
same blue to the foliage against the bank.
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2 Using lemon cadmium
and deep cadmium begin to position the flowers in the
same way as shown on page 19. Add the centres using
chrome orange.
3 Introduce some bluebells using light violet and
spectrum blue.
4 Position the path using brown ochre and
gunmetal, add a little brown ochre to the large tree and
the small trunks. Finally, darken the foliage against
the bank using blue grey. |
Step 4
Build up the grasses and leaves around the
daffodils using May green, spectrum blue and
mineral green. |
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Step 5
1. Load the brush with clean water
and, using circular movements, begin wetting the
sky. Continue until there is no unwanted texture
in this area.
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| 2. Continue down
the picture, using a blobbing movement, on the
foliage to retain the texture.
3. Gently wet the path. |
| Step 6
1. Moving into the foreground wet
the daffodils.
2. When the sky area is dry, gently wet
the trees using downward strokes to keep their
texture, then wet the church.
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3. Introduce a little
mineral green and gunmetal to the evergreen
tree, the foliage in front of the church and
against the bank. Gently wet these areas.
4. Finally, using gunmetal, add the
branches to the larger trees and any other small
details
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