Tuesday 19 August, live demo by Melanie Cambridge – Seascape in Oils, 7.30pm Centre 70
Melanie says:
She insists on doing a compositional sketch first, then taking photos as reference. She combined elements from 3 photos into her painting – the headland, near shore and close-ups of people.
She used an 18 x 22” canvas, Jacksons Puresol solvent as brush cleaner and thinners, and Vernissage oil paints (a well-priced German company, available online from Great Art). They take 2 weeks to ship from Germany but are half the price of others and good student quality.
She pre-coated the canvas with an acrylic pale purple tint, which she often uses for seascapes. She likes to have all the usual colours she uses laid out on her palette, with a mixing area in the middle. She cleans them off using Aldi wet wipes.
She started by measuring the halfway, third and mid-points on her canvas and worked on a loose sketch using ultramarine and a fine brush.
She painted the sky very quickly (under 10 minutes), using a large square brush and cerulean, cobalt and white, mixed. She scrubbed the paint on, varying the direction of the strokes, to get movement and texture. Halfway down, she added magenta and Naples yellow deep to get a pinky/purple sky near the horizon line. She added whiter clouds by rolling a white/pale blue mix over the top – not too many and not symmetrical, flicking the brush at the ends to create wispy trails.
Using a number 4 flat brush, she marked in the headland in a mid-green, adding a couple of grey patches to denote rocks. She then mixed ultra blue, cadmium yellow deep and a little white, to create the sea, and wet seashore, adding magenta and raw umber for the wet sandy foreground.
The 1st photo shows the painting at the halfway stage.
She then worked on the figures and flags, adding a reflection below each in the same colours, lightly smudged with a fingertip. She added waves in white/palest blue, adding a darker strip of sea blue under each wave for contrast.
Using cold wax, buff titanium and white, she created foam on the shore edge, cleverly and loosely adding semi-circles and a rivulet that took the eye back round the painting to the flags, on the left.
She added some of this cold wax white mix to enhance certain clouds and give them added texture and depth, being careful not to overdo it at this stage.
Her final touches were to darken the cold wax mix and use a round-ended palette knife to add areas of sandy texture to the immediate foreground. The final painting is shown in painting two. Melanie said that when the painting was dry, in a week or so, she may add further cold wax texture to the clouds, if needs be.
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Melanie’s website is at: melaniecambridge-fine-art.com
Free to members. Non-members welcome (£5 payable on the night).
To reserve your place at Centre 70, please email admin@wallingfordartclub.org.uk
