On Tuesday 15th September Mark Wood, a Wallingford based artist, gave a demonstration on painting seascapes in acrylics. Here are notes Nicola took on the night.
Scilly isles beach. 3 photos as reference, beach, sky, foreground. Split canvas into 3rds – land, horizon one third and third of sky. Draws simple sketch to start. Thumbnail sketch of what he aims to do in full colour. Pencil outline and thinned white paint to sketch outline.
Paints doro orange/cad yellow and white ground to cover canvas. Will let some of this show through. Masking tape for horizon line. Paints thin white line above sea to delineate.
Uses Graduate paints. Cerulean blue and titantium white and will mix in deeper blue. Uses 12 size chisel shape brushes only. Works quickly. Adds more cerulean higher up the sky – darker. Used cross hatch style to create texture. Cobalt at very top. Sometimes violet.
Left pink areas for clouds. Means you get a purer white. Leaves a touch of pink. Goes random with clouds. Some soft edges and some harder. Wispy ones closer and more blue for distant clouds. Some violet at base of clouds and for land mass.
Ochre and leaf green for tops of dunes. Alternate thickness and tones of dunes to keep it real. White and tiny bit of yellow ochre under dunes, fading to right. Below that white for beach. May add to it later. Bit more ochre as beach comes closer to you to make it stronger. Sand in a sweep as it meets the sea. Closer to viewer, adding more texture. More paint and more brush strokes. Leaf green, ochre, cerulean blue for grassy foreground. Dull green as a heavy base. Will add brighter colours later with wildflowers.Darker grass edge to top of dunes.
Sea: Leaf green, cerulean blue, titanium white to get greeny tinge. Mix from 3-4 colours to keep tonal values in line. Leave some pink to show through. Then cobalt to make it stronger. Horizontal brush strokes. Add more cobalt higher up. Blend blues.
White/yellow ochre for sand, especially near sea. Violet/ cerulean, white for wet sand. Blend with white edges to denote surf breaking. Purply blue shadow under dunes in foreground.
Highlights on top of dunes using violet, lightened. Wave tops white/cerulean. Darker cobalt near horizon in sea. Add more white into sand. More violet/ white for wet sand. Sparkle in waves with white, randomly dotted in foreground.
More layers to clouds to get depth. Lilac texture and shadow on sand near dunes. Used a rigger brush to add sea grasses in foreground dunes, using violet/leaf green. Ochre to add to grasses. Ensure brush strokes are random and in different directions to avoid it being symmetrical.
Suggestions of wild flowers. Magenta to dot flower heads in. Again, random. Add thalo turquoise among flower heads.
Darker green to edges of dunes at foot of painting. More white to foreground sand to add texture. And to wet sand to create sea foam.
At the end Mark said he had tackled a larger canvas than normal and would go back in and work on areas to define light, mid and dark sections of sea, plus add more sea grass and plants in the foreground.
