Part 4

Oil Painting

Above are the types of brushes, mediums and oil paints that would suit this type of highly figurative painting style. In the illustration I have included student colours. These really are not ideal for this commission but may suit the pocket of most poor starving art students. Ideally you should never scrimp on materials especially paints.The more expensive a colour the more pigment or actual colour it contains. This will make your work look and feel so much more professional and finished.

Oil paints are thinned and diluted with certain mixtures that can give your colours more flow and allow them to mix and blend better. This is known as adding medium. I use two mediums, one for cleaning paint off the brushes and one for mixing with paints. Try to keep your brushes clean at all times. Wipe excess oil paint off them with a clean rag or paper towels. Dirty paint will transfer to your painting. I use a mixture of; 60-70%Turpentine: 20% Linseed Oil for your paint medium.

There is no hard and fast rule but in this case I would use softer brushes, more sables or Dalons than hogshair. The secret to really fine, realistic painting is not just to use broad smooth brushwork but to “soft dry blend” with a dry soft brush as you go along. This is a real secret and something that took me years to discover on my own. This one thing will transform your painting. Rule 1: AVOID HARD EDGES! Blend areas of paint together as you go along with dry soft brushes (brushes with nothing on them) This is a technique that Leonardo used He gave it the name of sfumato or “smoke-like”. If you want to study this technique take a look at The Mona Lisa with fresh eyes. I defy you to find a hard line. This is also science. Light diffuses hard edges. if you use this technique your work will appear so much more “realistic”.

The rule with areas of colour when starting out is “work broad to narrow”. This means start with large areas of mid-toned colour. For instance, in the case of the flesh tone, mix up a lot of light toned colour on your palette. The flesh tone I use here is made up from the following:

65% Titanium White: 10% Standard Flesh Colour: 10% Yellow Ochre: 5% Alizarin Crimson: 5% Burnt Umber: 5% Dioxazine Purple.

This mixture is not hard and fast but should give any student a good flesh tone. To tint (or lighten) it you add more Titanium. To shade (or darken it) add more Burnt umber But, be careful not to add any white straight with another colour only. What happens is a “chalkiness” can build up in your painting that’s difficult to remove.

I also mix up a “black”. This is: 65% Burnt Umber: 35% French Ultramarine. Experiment with these two percentages until you get the “Black” you are looking for. This can be mixed in with the flesh tone to create a large range of shades from black up through dark brown to dark flesh tones.

But remember, broad to narrow. Look at the original more than half of the painting is a dark black-brown colour. That’s it! that’s half the painting finished. I have trained my eye to look for these large tonal areas. paint these in first with a big brush. Remember Durer? “draw with a needle, paint with a broom” Big brushes to start with and keep blending. Here I am only recreating a pastiche of an original old master. At all times I have a high quality version of the original to hand to study. Even if you have to spend some money for an original high quality print it’s one of the best things you can do to make this copy a success. Can you imagine what it took to create the original?

Part 2:

The Drawing

For the drawing, a common, labour saving method for transferring and scaling an accurate drawing on to a large board, is to project it using an overhead projector. The original is photocopied or Xeroxed on to a sheet of clear acetate. This is then placed on to an overhead projector and the image is projected on to the board. Because of this method I was also able to bypass using a pencil to establish the under drawing moving instead, straight on to the brown line stage.

Brown Line Under painting / Rigger Brush

I use a rigger brush to paint in a strong dark brown line drawing. A “rigger” is a long haired brush used by artists to draw long straight lines. It gets its name from marine painting where it was used to paint in the rigging of ships. Durer said “draw with a needle, paint with a broom” very good rules of thumb for painting and drawing.

An “under painting” is a strong lined drawing usually done with dark brown fast-drying acrylic paint (Burnt Umber) This is necessary for most oil paintings. Oil paints are opaque. If you apply them over a pencil drawing the pencil will no longer be seen. To avoid losing the guide that is the drawing, the artist should use an under painting. This much darker, stronger guide can still be seen when he or she starts to add in layers of colour over the top of the drawing.

Drawing Continued

Still using my Burnt Umber acrylic paint I continue to establish a strong brown line drawing outlining the main lines of the figure. Add plenty of water to the acrylic to achieve a good flow with the lines.

As can be seen in the photograph above, (still using the Burnt Umber acrylic) I began to use thin layers of paint with an 1″ brush over the top of the now dry brown lines. These little thin washes add to the drawing process, establishing shadows and highlights early on. Remember! In a project like this it is vital that the drawing be as detailed as possible. The drawing is your foundation and your only road map. Without a strong accurate drawing it will become nigh on impossible to continue the painting.

This painting was originally painted in 1995 to celebrate President Clinton’s (and Hilary’s) first visit to my home town of Derry, here in Ireland. This was a big deal at the time. I’m not sure most Americans get to see a serving president in their lifetime but we here in little Derry have had the pleasure of his company five times in twenty years.He first visited Derry in 1995 when he was President of the United States.During that visit, thousands of people turned out to greet him at Guildhall Square.

It was a chilly Thursday afternoon in November when the then President arrived in Derry city centre in a blaze of black limousines, American flags, tight security and rapturous applause.During his speech that day, he told the massed ranks in front of the Guildhall: “I came here because you are making a home for peace to flourish and endure.”He returned to Derry for a second time in the summer of 2001 and was back again two years later.On that occasion, he gave the inaugural lecture at the Tip O’Neill Chair of Peace Studies at the Magee campus of the University of Ulster.During his 2010 visit, again to Magee, he outlined his strategy to help lift the North out of its economic malaise.

Must be something in the air. I’m not sure what he would have made of this if he ever seen it…A good friend of mine, upon seeing it insisted on sending a photo of it to the Whitehouse. We never got a reply…

The village of Greencastle is a commercial fishing port situated on the shores of Lough Foyle, on the north coast of Inishowen in County Donegal, Ireland. The village is about twenty miles north of the city of Derry with views across the Lough to the beautiful Magilligan Strand.

The name “Greencastle” comes from the ancient castle, built in 1305 by the Normans, the remains of which can still be seen there today and which form the subject of this painting.This dramatic scene and its two ruined towers forms not just one of Ireland’s most historic sites but also, a perfect subject for a painting.

The main focus of this composition is of course the castle. It fills about half of the entire canvas. I could have got further back but I felt that some of the finer detail and texture of the old weathered stone may have been lost. The castle almost seems to grow out of the ground. The long unkempt, windswept grass growing up the small mound that the castle sits upon lead the eye upwards. This painting is all about the foreground, all about the castle. I framed the scene in such a way that  the nearest, tallest tower forms a vertical line about one third the way across the painting. The eye sweeps up the tower and up into the foreboding dark grey sky. Then over, across the skyline to the sands of Magilligan Strand just visible across Lough Foyle and highlighted by sunshine that has managed to penetrate the threatening skies above. If you enjoyed this little taste of Ireland please remember to “Like” this post/site or recommend it to your colleagues, friends and family…

These beautiful wild flowers caught my eye. This painting is all about the foreground. The purple flowers contrasted with the yellow buttercups and daisies and the surrounding greenery. This is really a natural snapshot of a place. This was captured in an area of outstanding Beauty in Ireland, in County Donegal in a place called The Downings.

What exactly do I mean by “A portrait of a place?” Well, these particular flowers would be native to that area and help identify where we are. They are unique in their combinations and breeds. This, then, in a way, tells the story of the place and the distant hills reaffirm that identity. These wild flowers are typical of this landscape and this place, as are the low lying hills and lakes in the background.

The detail, deep tonal value and high colour of the foreground is in direct contrast to the muted tones and hues of the distant hills with their blues, purples and white tinted greens. That sky also adds movement to the picture. There is a hint at high winds in the clouds, also not unusual in that particular landscape. In that part of the world dry, blue skies is the exception, chances are shortly after this scene was captured the rains moved in…