Innehållsförteckning för Issue 7 Volume 2 från Artists Back to Basics

The ideas in this article take it all as far as I know to go when it comes to the most difficult aspects of drawing freehand with proportional precision. Micro Sketching All lines only need to be as good as they need to be at any stage of a drawing, and this certainly applies to fine and very fine detail (figure 1). You have to remember that most of the time (until you enter the end game) you are placing lines and shapes on the paper just to help roughly shuffle around and position other lines and shapes. The more lines/shapes added, the more you see what needs to be shifted/modified next and so on. Exactly the same principle’s at play as when laying the first bold, broad sketch lines…

MATERIALS •  Stretched canvas 20 x 24”• Atelier Gesso• Fine sand paper• Palette knife• Fan brush no. 4• Art Basics 2200 Taklon 000• Art Basics Stiff Synthetic Filbert 95-KF No. 12• Art Basics Bristle Flat 101-F No. 6• Art Basics Bristle Bright 102-B No. 7• Art Basics Stiff Synthetic Bright 95-B No. 2• Art Basics Stiff Synthetic Bright 95-B No. 0• All Art Spectrum colours• Titanium White• Cobalt Blue• Burnt Umber• Light Red• Cadmium Yellow• Raw Sienna• Yellow Ochre STEP ONE Lightly draw out with a HB pencil the outline of the gumtree, horizon line and the mountains. Mix Cobalt Blue and Titanium White and paint the top of the sky. Then mix Light Red and Titanium White and paint the lower part of the sky. Mix a darker version of Cobalt and Titanium White and paint the mountain. STEP TWO Paint the tree line at the base…

Brushes I use a range of filberts and flats from #2 to #14. My new favourite is a number 14 Neef filbert. My round brushes are from 0 to #12. I am very careful to keep my oil brushes very separate from my acrylic brushes. I haven’t painted a beach painting for some time, and thought it an ideal subject for a painting demonstration. I needed new source photos for the painting, so I organised family members and their dogs to meet me at the local Perth dog exercise beach on the Easter weekend for a photoshoot. . . and then it rained. It kept raining solidly for 10 days, which is unheard of in Perth, so I started on the background of the painting, occasionally peering out of the…

In my last two articles I’ve talked about how the sky can play an important part and add so much interest to your paintings (The Sky’s the Limit) and how the light bouncing off and through the clouds creates shadows across the landscape adding drama to the work (Don’t turn the lights out) in this article I thought I’d bring these two elements together but also add a new suggestion Divide and Conquer Divide to Conquer those painting Blues Many new artists are often daunted and apprehensive when confronted with a blank sheet of water colour paper, just like a writers with writers block, not knowing where to start, and when they do start applying paint soon find that what they had in their minds eye and what’s actually happening…

Jill Kirstein was born in Katoomba, New South Wales – high in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney. After the war, her family moved to Bulawayo in Rhodesia (Zimbabwe). It was at the Bulawayo Dominican Convent where a lifetime love of art first began to emerge in her youthful experience. Many years later, after marrying a Rhodesian cattle farmer, Jill took up painting with renewed fervour. The peace and tranquility of panoramic views from her farmhouse home inspired Jill to rekindle the flame of her passion for painting. As an accomplished flower arranger who had won several trophies and awards, Jill Kirstein followed her natural inclinations to pursue floral art in her personal search for artistic expression. Her particular love of roses reinforced her view that these distinctive blooms were…

It always starts and ends in the brain this art stuff. Here’s the bit of the really deep end that involves the grey mushy stuff. It’s all exactly what goes on in my head all the time, every day at the drawing board. You’re lucky I’m even sharing such personal stuff really but part of the weird is the start and finish. If I tell you how to draw straight lines I have to tell the whole rest of the story or none of its any good to any of us. Here we go then.... Care Factor Standard As soon as you let slip the tiniest thing you saw but didn’t act on (but knew you could have) the whole care factor aspect slips back a notch to the new…

MATERIALS Brushes • 2’’ flat• ¾” flat wash• ½” flat round taklon filbert• 2” fan• No 6 flat• 1/8 filbert• ½” stippler Hydroacylic paints • Cerulean Blue• Titanium White• Dioxazine Purple• Ultramarine Blue• Magenta• Phthalo Green• Yellow Oxide• Lemon Yellow •  Stretched canvas polycotton tight weave 600 x 800mm• Flow promoter medium• Palette knife• Masking tape STEP ONE Mix 10% Cerulean Blue, 10% Titanium White, apply 10% flow promoter (use a few drops in every mix) and mix. Apply evenly to canvas using a 2” flat brush, finishing with horizontal strokes to more that ¾ of canvas. STEP TWO Use masking tape to define the ocean’s horizon, then back to the sky using a ¾” flat wash brush using Dioxine Purple, Ultramarine Blue and Magenta mixed with Titanium White. Begin to map in the direction of cloud mass using the “ala prima” (wet on wet) technique, using the…

Natalie Barlow was born in Geelong, Victoria. After finishing school, she studied Commercial Art at the Melbourne College of Decoration, and in 1987 attained a TAFE certificate in Promotional Display and Advertising. Since then she has worked as a graphic artist in Melbourne, Coffs Harbour, Sydney and now the Sunshine Coast, where she has lived for the past five years. Since arriving on the Sunshine Coast, Natalie has joined the Pomona Gallery Artists and Friends Group, the Friends of Noosa Regional Gallery and the Queensland Wildlife Art Society. She finds the groups to be very nurturing and supportive in her artistic development. Her interest in art started while studying graphic design. She commenced art classes in 1986 at the local community centre and soon developed an interest in painting wildlife,…

Steeped in history, the Federation Gothic building housing Maitland Regional Art Gallery (MRAG) in the lower Hunter Valley of NSW is an awe-inspiring example of early 1900s architecture. Officially opened in 1910, it was constructed to house the Maitland Technical College, which it continued to do until 1987. Technical education experienced many changes during this life of the building, and only two years later the building behind the Gallery was added to provide more class space. If you look closely at the brickwork of the two buildings, it is clear that they were to be eventually joined by a walkway. The main building at the front of the site which now houses the Gallery is not only vitally important because of its role in technical education; architecturally, it is one…