Landscape with Oil paint sticks

Playing around with paint sticks on canvas.  A really fast process, finished it in less than 2 hours.
Here is an equally fast video showing a few of the steps.

Summer Classes & Workshops

I'll be teaching Summer classes and workshops at Pointe Claire.

If you would like more information e-mail me or visit Galerie d'art Pointe Claire.

You can call to register. 

Types of Charcoal

Not all charcoal is the same and that can create confusion when starting a drawing.  Here are a few things to consider when working with charcoal.

Natural charcoal ( vine or willow) is made by baking thin wooden vines or branches in a kiln. There are special types of natural charcoal made from specific types of wood. It is preferred by artists because of the ability to create subtle tones of grey and deep blacks. Vine does not adhere as well to paper as willow charcoal.

Nitram charcoal is a very high quality that comes in different grades, from H (hard) to extra soft. It will adhere well to paper, it blends well and it creates very little dust. It is the preferred brand for fine artists specializing in charcoal drawing.

Charcoal techniques are additive and subtractive. Additive means that charcoal is applied in multiple layers to achieve different dark tones. Subtractive means that it is lifted off the drawing surface in order to reveal the drawing surface. Lesser quality vine charcoal will be very powdery and will not adhere well to the drawing surface withou a fixative.

Compressed Charcoal is made of charred wood, ground to a dust and then bound together with gum arabic. It will create deep rich black tones.

Compressed charcoal varies greatly depending on the brand. Good quality compressed charcoal (Derwent, General’s, Yarka) will create deep dark tones and will also blend and lift off the paper fairly well. In other words, it will behave much like vine charcoal. It will also adhere to the drawing surface better than certain types of vine charcoal.

Certain brands of compressed charcoal will create very dark tones but it will be very difficult to blend or lift of the surface. The same is true for charcoal pencils. They generally have much more binding material and may have some of wax added. Charcoal pencils can be sharpened to a fine point but it's not easy to blend with them.

N.B.: Black pastel and compressed charcoal are not the same thing although the results may be similar. Black pastels use black pigments which are not derived from charred wood.

Blending tools

The most common ways of blending charcoal is by using hands and fingers, blending stumps and a cloth or chamois (a soft thin leather). Brushes can also be uses to blend and lift off charcoal.

When blending with my fingers or a cloth, I am able to spread the charcoal evenly across the surface. This way of blending will also lift off a large amount of charcoal. The ability to smoothly blend and lift charcoal off the surface depends on the type and quality of charcoal I am using.

Blending stumps tend to push the charcoal into the surface of the paper rather than lift it off. They are also used to define finer details. They can be easily cleaned and sharpened with sand paper sticks.

Charcoal test

If you are not familiar with the charcoal that you are using, always test it before you start a drawing project. This way you are not going to have any unwanted outcomes.  A simple test is to do a graduation from light to dark. This will allow you to determine how the charcoal:

• Lifts off of the surface, (subtractive technique)
• How well it blends to get subtle tones
• How strongly it adheres to the surface in order to work towards darker tones (additive technique)

The image above shows different types of charcoal.  They were applied, blended with my hands and a cloth.  The eraser marks were made with a gum eraser.  Notice that the Yarka compressed charcoal and charcoal pencil don’’t erase or blend as smoothly as the natural charcoal sticks.

Drawing Papers

What to consider when choosing paper:

Acid free: Acid free paper will not yellow or degenerate over time. Most artist quality papers are acid free. Nonetheless, verify this before buying paper. If you are going to do quick studies or throw away sketches, inexpensive non acid-free paper is fine.

Archival paper is both acid free and it will not deteriorate or break down over time. Fine artists who want their work to stand the test of time choose this type of paper.

Material: wood fibre (cellulose) or cotton?Wood fibre is most commonly used for all types of papers. Unless the paper brand specifically states that the paper is made with cotton you can assume that it is made from wood fibre. Sometimes papers are made of a mix of the two materials.

Cotton is considered the best paper to work with because of its durability and permanence. It is generally more expensive that wood fibre paper.

Cotton paper used for drawing: Stonehenge, Canson edition, Arches drawing paper, Arches Ingres
 
Paper WeightThe thickness and heaviness of paper is measured by its weight. A heavier paper is thicker and more resilient.

• Sketch paper: 60 lbs
• Drawing paper: 80 -90 lbs
• Watercolour paper 90lbs, 140 lbs, 300 lbs.

Paper texture:The texture of the paper is extremely important. Texture is commonly referred to as tooth. A paper with less tooth is smooth (Bristol) whereas a paper with a lot of tooth is textured. The tooth will determine how the drawing material will behave and adhere to the surface. It will also determine what types of material techniques will work best for the paper

If you are not familiar with the type of paper you are buying, lightly run your hand across the surface to feel the texture. Papers range from very smooth to vellum (velvety feel) to increasing types of textures.  If you are drawing with charcoal or pastel, and if you are building up layers of drawing material, a vellum or textured paper is often preferred.

The textured surface will allow for adding multiple layers of drawing material before reaching the point of saturation. Saturation refers to the maximum amount of material that you can add to the drawing surface. After saturation, it is difficult to add anything more to the surface or to make any changes to the drawing.

Pastel papers: Canson ( Mi-teintes, Ingres) and Fabriano (Tiziano) have a rough tooth and are available in different colours.

Strathmore Charcoal 500 is a slightly textured paper designed for charcoal and pastel. It is made of cotton, so it will be quite resilient to the additive and subtractive techniques. It comes in white and muted colour.

Night Fishing: Analogous colours & Impressionist technique

This is an analogous painting exercise for my Impressionist painting class. Working from a black and white photo,  the aim is to work with a limited palette of analogous colours and create the gradations of light to dark.  The logic behind the palette is to choose the darkest colour and the lightest colour using colours that are in the same family.  In this case I was using ultramarine blue, phthalo blue and phthalo green.  The sttongest highlight was a cadmium yellow for the moon and water reflections.
The images below show the progression of the painting.  This first stage of the painting was created with just ultramarine blue.  When the paint was dry, I mixed a palette of analogous colours (see on the bottom).

The drawing is kept very simple.  Small individual brush strokes are used to loosely indicate the major shapes of light and dark.

I continue to build up the surface with the different tones of ultramarine blue.  I let the paint dry and then go on to recover the surface with the analogous colours.

I start with the sky, using the phthalo green mix for the moon and then progressively lay in the the relatively darker colours in the sky then in the water.

Once the whole surface is equally covered with the blues and blue greens, I finally add the pale cadmium yellow in the moon and water.

Analogous colour palette:

Here is a close-up of the surface showing the individual brush strokes and the texture created by superimposing the paint:

Oil Pastel Study with Holbein Oil Pastels

This is an oil pastel exercise that is useful way to explore how colours can be mixed by layering. Rather than use blending tools, the point is to use hatched lines.The lines are spaced apart to allow for the colours to show through.  This also leave the surface area open so that I can continue to add more layers of colour.  The effect is both a physical mix and an optical mix of colours.

I am using two analogous colours that should mix to create a colour that is found in between them.  In this case I used cobalt blue and red violet  with the expected result to be a blue violet.  I wanted the final image to have a coherent colour.  In other words, the different areas should achieve the same colour  so that the final composition looks like a monochrome. Here are the steps that I took to do the demo drawing using three tone of cobalt blue,  red violet  and white.

For each layer of colour, I alternated between doing a red violet layer, then a blue layer.

A key element when doing oil pastel is to always work from lighter to darker and to use a medium to light pressure.  As you can see from the steps above, the composition gets progressively darker as more layers of colour are added.

I hope the oil pastel enthusiasts out there will find this useful.

Initial layer of red violet	Cobalt blue layer
Notice that I am establishing the tones.	Close-up showing different colours and tones
	Final closeup.  The blues and violets are more obvious here.

Les Demoiselles Rousseau

20 x 30 inches,oil/canvas

Finally finished and delivered, this is a family portrait if the three Rousseau sisters, daughters of Mr. M Rousseau.  I composed it from three separate and very different photos.  Two of which were selfies, so it qualifies for my Contact Portrait  series of paintings.  The clouds and balloon play on the profession of their dad.  It was quite a challenging portrait, to say the least!

Impressionist Landscape in Oil Part 2

12 x 16 inches, oil/canvas

Here is part 2 of the Impressionist Landscape painting done in oil.  It is a small landscape study done with my Impressionist class at the Visual Arts Centre in Montreal.  The focus was on achieving the different planes of the landscape, background, middle ground and foreground, using loose brush strokes without getting caught up with too much detail and looking at how cool and warm colours can create luminous lights and shadows.

Impressionist Landscape Video: Lavender Fields in Oil

oil/canvas  11 x 14 inches

Yes, another video from one of my classes.  I can't help it.  When I have a bit of spare time, I really love making these things. Perhaps one day I will do a real movie...when I can afford to get a movie camera. Maybe some crowd funding...or not.

This is a short demo based on a painting exercise in my Impressionist class at the VAC.  The aim is paint in a loose style.  The focus is not on details but on the large shapes and how they are created with colour and tone.  In Part 2 (coming soon), I will add a second layer of colour that will focus on the warm and cool colours to accentuate the feeling of sunlight.

Here are a few of the stages:

And here is the video.  You can also see it on YouTube.

P.S. I often have trouble spelling lavender, probably because of French (lavande). 

Rose

14 x 18 inches, oil/canvas

It is my Mom's 80th birthday this month!  This rose is for her.  It is  from the beautiful garden that my father kept when he was still alive.  Their garden was a wonderful haven for me that I would look forward to when I would go home in the summer. 

Impressionist Landscape in Acrylic

We were working on a landscape in my Impressionist class this week that focused on a limited palette of analogous colours.  It  is one of my favorite painting exercises to show how a limited palette can be used to create a luminous composition.  It is also a great example of how little detail is needed when the focus is placed on colour.
I made a video showing the process.  Here are some of the images from the video:

Here is the video.  You can also see it on my YouTube channel.

 

Painting Class at the VAC

 

I'll be teaching an Impressionist technique class at the Visual Arts Centre for the spring session.  It's one of my favorite classes.  Classes start on April 18th.  Registration has already started!

If you want to know more, contact me or the Visual Arts Centre.  info@centredesartsvisuels.ca.

I am also teaching:

• Introduction to Oil painting on Monday evenings.  A great class to brush up on your basics of color mixing and technique.   

• Oil pastel techniques will be on Thursdays from 1 - 4 pm.  Oil Pastel is a great medium that brings together painting and drawing

Coloured Pencil–Red Pepper

Here are a few photos showing a coloured pencil drawing of a red pepper.  As I showed in the last post. I start with a tonal scale to work out how to get a gradation from light to dark.  In this particular case, the scale from light to dark is not just one colour but several colours that range from pale yellow to orange to orange red to different tones of red for the pepper.  This is not just a tonal gradation but also a colour gradation following the colour wheel.


I chose to work on grey paper because of the dark background of the composition and I also wanted to experiment with the use of lighter colours on a darker ground.  The coloured pencil process is one which starts with relatively light tones working towards darker tones.  Many layers of colour are added progressively on top of each other.

The basic shape of the composition is drawn in and the lighter colours are added using very light pressure.

I continue to add the lighter tones of colour on the pepper, stem and background. I use light pressure and I am weaving one colour into another to create a smooth transition.

I have focused on the lighter tones of the pepper using the oranges and red orange colours. Once enough of these colours are applied  and the background colours are added, I can start to slowly darken the shadows of the pepper.

This is the finished study.  The darkest colours were added during the last half of the drawing process. Colours are constantly layered one over the other to get smooth transitions. Working is layers is a slow process that demands much patience.  The pay off is that layering dark over light creates a more dense and rich depth of colour.

Drawing with Colour

I introduced colour into my drawing class last week. We worked with coloured pencils and soft pastel. In my opinion, it is easiest to start colour in monochromes. I asked everyone to bring a couple of tones of one colour plus white and black. Here are a couple of demos, one in coloured pencil and one in soft pastel.

coloured pencil	soft pastel

Here is a short demo explaining each process. When starting with a new material, I like to begin with a simple tonal scale. It allows me to understand how to create gradations and transitions from one tone to the next.

Coloured Pencil:
For the coloured pencils, I worked with three tones of blue, a pale, medium and very dark tone as well as white.  The drawing is done on smooth bristol.  Here is the tonal scale.


Coloured pencil is best work up in many progressive layers, using a constant pressure of application.  Since it is not an opaque medium, it is also better to work from progressively lighter to darker.  In order to get a smooth gradation of tones, I will apply the lighter tone first, then the darker tone over top.  When I want to get a subtle change in tones I will layer the coloured pencils very progressively, interweaving the tones.  Here is the pear drawing in its stages:

The lightest blue is used to block in the large shapes.  Attention is paid to the shape of light and shadow.	The light shade of blue is applied in several layers before starting to add the darker blue coloured pencil.

The darker tone of blue of blue is used to strengthen the shadow on the pear, while the lighter tone is applied again in the background.	The darker tone of blue is applied to the background.  The darker tone appears lighter because of the many layers of lighter tone beneath it.  The lighter tone of blue is also added to the area between the light and shadow of the pear.

I repeat the layering of light and dark tones on the pear and background until the paper seems almost saturated with the coloured pencil.	In the last stage I add the darkest blue into the shadow of the pear.  I also add several layers of the lighter tone of blue to soften the transition between light and shadow.

Soft Pastel:

Soft pastel is worked differently then coloured pencil because it is an opaque drawing medium.  This means that I can apply dark over light or light over dark in order to achieve different gradations of tone.  I am working with Prismacolor Nupastels using several tones of blue plus white. I am using Canson Mi Teintes paper in a creamy off-white. Here is the tonal scale:

The drawing is blocked in with white.	The lights and shadows and blocked in with white and the lightest blue.

The light tone of blue is added to the background.  The middle tone of blue is added to the shadow side of the pear. The drawing becomes sharper by working the different areas of light and dark.	Blending in the colour: This is an optional stage.  By finger blending the tones the colour of the paper is covered up.  I will generally do this only at the beginning of the drawing because over blending will make the colours dull and lifeless.

I add white and the light tone of blue to the background and foreground using loose cross hatched strokes. I put more white over the blue in the foreground to make certain it is lighter.	I strengthen the shadow of the pear with the middle tone blue.  I continue to cross hatch the light blue and white in the background and foreground.

Here is the finished pear drawing. Although I was using only three tones of blue plus white, I am able to get many different subtle tones of blue by applying multiple layers of colour. Soft pastel is a unique drawing medium because I can create drawings that are graphic and painterly at the same time.  Because of its opacity, I can layer light of dark and dark over light to create different tones.