Each month laterlife.com presents a feature from either The Artist or its sister publication, Leisure Painter.   

Art masterclass      

from The Artist, the monthly magazine for amateur and semi-professional painters, giving practical instruction in painting and drawing in watercolour, pastels and oils, as well as news of art events, exhibitions and competitions open to leisure artists; www.theartistmagazine.co.uk  

This Month:

How to use mixed media

Experiment with combining different media to bring out a variety of effects and textures in the same subject. Here is an extract taken from a feature in June 2009 by Joanne Boon Thomas

Charcoal and felt-tip pen

An eraser is used to lift any unwanted charcoal and to create highlights. I feel that with my photograph for colour reference and my monochromatic sketch (above) I now have a starting point to explore the possibilities that this subject has to offer.

Tips for sketching

• Sit for a while and assess your subject before you start to sketch
• Use your sketch to simplify the scene and lose unwanted detail
• Explore new ways of sketching using different media

Soft pastel and watercolour

The advantage of this method is that you can cover large sections of paper with a watercolour wash. When dry, drag soft pastel over areas to reveal the grain of the paper. This provides a lively contrast with the watercolour washes underneath as well as providing rich colour.

There is texture to be found on the old stonewall, path and foliage. This method is ideal to convey the textural qualities of all these elements.
Once the paper has been covered with light watercolour washes and allowed to dry, drag soft pastel over the top of the dry wash. By dragging the pastel on its side, you can suggest the texture of the old brick with very little effort. The foliage areas and flowers are produced in very much the same way with a combination of dragging the pastel on its side, and dots and dashes of bright colour to suggest the flowers. I used my lightest yellow and green pastels to catch the highlights on the foliage.

laterlife interest

The above article is part of the features section of laterlife.com called laterlife interest. laterlife interest contains a variety of articles of interest for visitors to laterlife.com written by a number of experienced and new journalists.

It includes both one off articles and also associated regular columns of a more specialist nature such as Healthwise, Talkback, Gardener's Diary, and a beauty section called Looking good in later life.

There's also 'It could be you' by Maggi Stamp laterlife's counsellor on human relationships. 

Also don't forget to take a look at our regular IT question and answer section called YoucandoIT by IT trainer and author Jackie Sherman.

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