Innehållsförteckning för Easy Painting 2024/25 från Artists & Illustrators

Welcome to Easy Painting! This is your 116-page guide to creating great pictures. Almost everyone enjoys making art when they are children. Yet, as you get older it is easy to put it to one side when life gets in the way. Returning to painting – or even just picking it up for the first time – should not be something scary, but rather something to be celebrated. If you are holding this magazine in your hands, you've made a great first step to reconnecting with your creative self and enjoying making your mark with paint once more. Easy Painting has been designed to guide you through the basic building blocks required to develop your knowledge and technique. You will find guides to selecting the right materials, sketching out subjects,…

MATERIAL Most papers are made from one of two substances. Cotton is the most stable and so 100% cotton papers are perfect for finished artworks of a professional standard. Papers made from wood pulp, meanwhile, are a good economical choice, particularly for prep work. WEIGHT The weight of paper is measured in pounds or grams per square metre (lbs or gsm). The medium you intend to use is a good guide to what weight to choose. Pencil drawings can be made on lighter papers, whereas 160gsm (75lb) is a good starting weight for more expressive pastel work. Painting with water-based media requires heavier papers – either 300gsm (140lb) if you intend to stretch them or 425gsm (200lb) and above if you don’t. TEXTURE Surface texture has a direct bearing on…

What is a paint medium? A paint medium is an additive, usually an oil or a paste, that can be mixed with your paint to alter the properties of it in some way. It should not be confused with references to the different types of “painting mediums”, which are the types of paint, such as oil, watercolour, gouache and acrylic. Why are they useful? Paint mediums give artists greater control over the application and finish of the paint. Different mediums can be used to variously alter the consistency, texture, sheen and drying time of your paintings – or chosen sections of them. Are there downsides to using them? Some paint mediums naturally have a slight yellow tint to them, so look for “non-yellowing” options. Paint mediums can also cause issues…

To help you with your colour mixing, I wanted to take a look at the Zorn palette to show you how you can use it in your paintings. We will use the Zorn palette to look in detail at colour, colour relationships and the advantages of using it when it comes to portraiture. WHAT IS THE “ZORN PALETTE”? The Zorn palette – also known as the “limited palette” – is a restricted palette of four basic colours: black, white, red and yellow. When mixing with them, I consider these the primary colours and white – with black the substitute for blue. Some also regard the Zorn palette as two colours – yellow and red – with black and white pigments serving to control the chroma and the value. Either way,…

WHAT IS ALLA PRIMA? Alla prima is also known as “direct” painting and refers to a wet-into-wet method of using oils and acrylics in which the picture is basically completed in one sitting while entirely wet. It is the opposite of “indirect” painting, whereby the paint surface is built up in layers with each layer being allowed to dry before the subsequent one is applied. Alla prima is a more modern way of working, whereas most of the painting done before the 17th century could be described as indirect. WHY PAINT DIRECT? My direct painting method first developed when I left art school in 1984. After graduation, I no longer had access to live models – and was too poor to hire them. Although I liked working from still life…

Colour captures My Artists & Illustrators award-winning piece, The Garden, came about when I took my class to Fullers Mill Garden in Suffolk for some plein air painting in the summer. I made sketches and colour washes at the garden, which I brought home to my studio. For the final painting, I was conscious of capturing a sense of the vibrant colours and shapes of the flowers without being too figurative. I started with the white tulips, blocking them out using masking fluid, which I left to dry before wetting the entire surface of the paper and dropping in the washes of watercolour. Before the watercolour had dried, I drew into it with a dart (any other pointed instrument will do) to indicate the stalks and plant frame. The sharp…

Choosing light sources and creating lighting effects in a painting is one of the central formal tasks of creating an image. Whether a painting is highly realistic or only loosely recognisable in its content and subject, the direction, colour and intensity of light chosen for the work can strengthen or weaken the artist’s intent. For, example, what would a Rembrandt portrait be without the rich light and shade effects that reveal the form and character of its subject? Impressionism is beloved by many for its shimmering colour effects created solely by ambient light. Taking time to look at lighting types and directions and translating them into both practical and poetic studio decisions is essential for the aspiring painter. The history of lighting effects in western painting starts with the ancient…

Back to basics I’ve been teaching for a long time, working in art colleges and doing visiting lectures. All of that has changed in the pandemic. I started a Patreon account, but I didn’t just want to take what I was doing online already and charge people for it. So every month, I take a topic and make a video or two about it for my subscribers, mostly about working in oils and working with the figure. There are chances for people to ask me questions as well. Topics or themes might be colour palettes or glazing. The next thing I’m discussing is transcription. It was a big part of art teaching for a while and then it became unfashionable. The slate was wiped clean by conceptual art and colleges…

I made this portrait of Immie, a student and model at our Brighton studio, to experiment with a more minimal treatment of clothing and to explore a high-key interpretation of shadows that prioritised colour relationships over tonal accuracy. For reference I used a photograph of Immie from the Draw Brighton image library, cropping to take the focus away from her feet. I settled on a photograph in which Immie was making steady eye contact with the camera to suggest something of her easy, confident bearing. I only like to draw from photos of a pose that could plausibly be held for the length of time in which the drawing is made, so this longer drawing ruled out any dynamic twists or fleeting expression. www.jakespicerart.co.uk 1 Create an under-drawing I began…

Finding subjects I’ve been drawn to portraiture since I was very little. I always come back to the human face, I love it in all its forms and expressions and colours. I think a portrait is a really unique way of capturing a moment in time as well. My style is something that has evolved really. The artists who appeal to me have got a real signature style and you know what to expect from them – I wanted my work to have a similar signature, really. Aside from the famous faces like Frida Kahlo or Billie Eilish, I use the Sktchy app to find my subjects. It’s a beautiful, collaborative community of artists who share photos with each other, as well as inspiration and ideas. The monthly fee (which…

As an alternative exercise to the one above, try painting two eggs together – this makes things more interesting as you must consider the relationship between the two objects. An extra challenge could be to place the eggs on a piece of wood or in front of a hessian background. The colours and values of the new background will now be closer to those of the eggs, so this will in turn encourage you to look more closely at the relationships between colours across the whole painting, rather than simply focusing on local colour.…

BATTISBOROUGH COVE, WATERCOLOUR ON PAPER, 35X45CM This is a good example of my approach to a complex subject. I noted the ever-changing colours in the sea, the milky blueness of the shadows, and the sharply lit edges to some of the rocks. I found these details exciting and wanted to make my painting about these elements. The desire to focus on these details outweighed the need for topographical accuracy. Colours were heightened, rock formations were simplified or left out altogether. In essence, I only included elements and details that supported or complimented my chosen areas of interest. LOOKING OUT FROM THE MOOR, OIL ON BOARD, 30X20CM The bright, sunlit field in the mid-ground contrasting with the dark background was the hook that caught my attention and would become the focus of this…

One of the most complicated issues for artists when it comes to colour is understanding the value of colours in nature and how to replicate this in paint. This is also sometimes called the tonality of colours. In the modern world, a greyscale – usually containing as many as 10 stops on the scale from pure white to absolute black – is used as a guide to colour values. A pure middle grey is usually the fifth stop on this scale. Value refers to the visual quality of light and dark of surfaces, colours, objects and shapes, as we see them in nature. In other words, how light or dark are they. Matching colour mixtures to capture the correct values of an object or a scene is a skill that…

I visited Chédigny a couple of years ago, a small village known as “The City of Roses”. I love painting doors, balconies and windows with flowers, the play between light and shade attracts me so the wisteria subject was perfect for me. I took hundreds of photos and made a few sketches. Wisteria is not an easy subject to paint in watercolour. If you suggest round shapes instead of drooping clusters, for example, it’s going to look like a climbing rose instead. Colour choice is important: the most well-known shades of wisteria are lavender, pink, violet and white but the pink is not so vibrant. Most of the time the flowers have a softer, pastel look. The leaf colour is also important – it’s not a dark green; it’s an…

GRAPHITE Sketching pencils are an essential part of any artist’s kit. Even if you only draw to work out a composition for your painting, you’ll still need to use good-quality materials. There is not just one best pencil for sketching so you should find the one that suits you. Graphite pencils are graded. H stands for “hard” – H leads are very smudge resistant and give cleaner lines, ideal for outlines and light sketching. The higher the H number, the lighter the pencil. B stands for “blackness” – B leads contain more graphite, so they smudge easily and are readily erased. The higher the B number, the softer and blacker the pencil. HB falls in the middle of this scale. You may also see an F grade, which stands for…

As primarily a painter of landscapes, my work has often featured stone and its many textures. From shiny, worked granite and natural field boulders to stone rows and rocky coves, it seems as if I’ve painted stone in all its forms and guises. Living and working on the edge of Dartmoor and close to the coastal cliffs of south Devon, I have an almost never-ending source of subject matter to fill sketchbooks and subsequently canvases back in the studio. Over the many years of painting stone, two characteristics seem to stand out above all others. One is the colour – or more accurately, colours – found in the rock itself. The variations of hue seen in just a few pieces of granite are almost impossible to record. The other important…

1 Take time to plan out the colour relationships relative to edges, chromatic intensities, scales and the overall elements of creating aerial perspective. 2 Problem solve and critique your work as you go, using the visual qualities discussed in the article to help you to make suitable adjustments and modifications. 3 Try to consider the overall depth relationships in a composition, rather than always focusing on painting interesting details or tackling favourite areas. 4 Evaluate the painting as a whole periodically throughout the entire painting process, especially the depth created by colour and its related relationships.…

The earth palette comprises the oldest group of colours used by humans. Archaeological evidence of a short list of earth and organic-based colours goes back as much as 70,000 years. Prehistoric people around the world used a palette comprised of naturally occurring yellow clays, brown earths, reddish iron-rich clays, carbon from burned sticks and bones, and white made from ground clam shells and natural chalk. This “limited” palette has been used to create remarkable images on cave walls and cliff faces, as well as the colouring on ancient totems, pottery and jewellery. Reds, yellows, blacks and whites gave a rich variety to paintings of prehistoric animals and humans as well as striking patterning and colour on pottery, jewellery and other objects. Extremely durable, the early earth palette has miraculously survived…

To get to grips with a Fauvist-style colour palette, look at a variety of works painted by them between 1904 and 1908. Practice by painting small still life or landscape compositions using pure, bright colours with little mixing. Try to cultivate a freedom of expression in your choice of colours, rather than just matching what you see. The following pigments would be a good selection to get started.…