TECHNICAL INFORMATION
THE MEDIUM
I work almost exclusively using Winsor & Newton Alkyd “oil” colours (with the occasional delve into watercolour). These comprise finest quality pigments in an alcohol/resin binder. The result is that to all intents and purposes, the medium looks like and has the properties of traditional oil paint. However in execution it has a much faster drying time. Consequently, although it is still possible to “blend” the colours in a way normally associated with oil painting, more exciting and avant-garde techniques are available to the artist.
TECHNIQUES
The “support” (a strange technical term used by artists to define the material used to paint on) preferred by me is board. Board which has been heavily primed with a cross hatching of paint to create a rough canvas effect and then initially used as a “palette” for another painting. In this way the old paint forms random textures and the build up of paint when dry provides a quite unique surface and multi-coloured background on which to commence painting. This can be quite a challenge to create a composition particularly when trying to integrate some of this random textured background in appropriate areas.
The "canvas" effect showing through. Part of "The road to Narrowgates" (in Gallery 2) Dots and dashes - and other sundry marks! Part of "Spring Wood, Whalley no1" (in Gallery 2)
BRUSH STROKES
No concession to photo realism here! Of course it is easy to paint every blade of grass, every leaf on a tree - all it takes is time - and in my case a pair of spectacles! Technically it isn't difficult. What I do however is to produce a (fairly) realistic image but which upon closer inspection shows the whole surface as a myriad of random marks - dots, dashes and even scratches into the paint.
Combined with the aforementioned surface textures of the support and a method known as scumbling - where dry brush work is dragged over earlier strokes allowing some of the base colour to show through, then the result is quite a cacophony of colour!
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