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Reed Bunting study in Oil 12" x 8" |
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Written by David
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Saturday, 13 October 2007 |
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Reed Bunting study in Oil 12" x 8"
In Spring, I often walk past a marsh area down by the river, where Reed Buntings and Sedge Warblers use the Greater Reedmace as song posts.
An hour or two after dawn is best as the sun lights the reedmace, willows and birds from behind. Male Reed Buntings may be fairly weak singers but, in Spring, they look stunning, and they pose like this one, singing for long periods.
This simple ‘blob on a stick' composition appealed to me. It is a kind of telephoto view, as I see it through a telescope with the background vegetation simplified to a backdrop curtain of green.
The whole thing was quickly bashed in with a monochrome underpainting using Burnt Sienna and Cobalt Blue and I developed some areas of the bird and its perch in the first session, softening some edges in shadow with my finger. Suggestions of a few reed stems were painted with simple downward brushstrokes.
I let it dry for, oh, about a year! Then took it up again the following spring to recommence work on it. My first attempts at developing the bird weren't successful so I wiped off the paint and started again- one of the advantages of using oils.
Because most of the bird is in shadow, I resisted painting it in detail, but tried to use the effect of sunlight to define the bird. I wanted to sit the bird comfortably into its perch of the woolly, expanded seed head, softening some edges and emphasising others.
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Oils |
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Written by David
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Thursday, 19 July 2007 |
bluebell wood
My first venture into using oils was at age thirteen, with my first painting set and easel - a magical birthday gift from mum and dad. Even now, when I work in oils, the smell of the paint and linseed oil evokes special memories from that first encounter with this classic medium.
My choice of support is often MDF with an acrylic Gesso primer, but I do also like the feel of a fine-grained canvas. I use oils sparingly, preferring to apply my first layer in a well brushed-out fashion, leaving the impression of brush-strokes, with the white, or sometimes tinted ground showing through in places. Once the tonal underpainting is roughly established and dry, I like to go for the finished state fairly quickly, using a little Liquin (a fast drying medium) with little or no spirit diluent for a top layer of detail and colour. This example, Bluebell Wood, was a small painting done on location. I later finished it at home, adding a blackbird in the foreground.
My sparing application of oils must stem from those early, tentative experiences of trying not to waste the colours, which I regarded as precious and a luxury, back then. Even so, I do like to push oils around with a painting knife when working outdoors, and scrape into the thin early layers to suggest branches or stems of vegetation. This is part of the excitement and immediacy of working quickly out in the field, but I tend to adopt a more considered approach for my larger studio paintings.
Occasionally, I'll use an acrylic underpainting, preferring to keep it almost as a thin wash, so as not to apply the subsequent oils onto a smooth plastic-like acrylic film - I'm concerned that the oil colour may not adhere too well. I'm happy with this mixed approach for small plein air sketches or studies, combining the best of both media. For larger or more important paintings, I'll use either oil or acrylic.
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