Art Demonstration 3
 
Once again I am breaking the rules. Any art teacher will warn you about finishing large sections of a picture before starting on the rest. Indeed it is common to paint both sky and water with the same brushload. That's very wise advice: you take it, but I'll leave my water till the end - so that I can look forward to the treat of painting it. Besides, as I have already explained, I know where my picture is going; it already exists in my visual imagination. While we're about it, let's look at a few techniques which have helped me get to this stage in the painting.

o   I am a great believer in paper handkerchiefs. They are as important to me as a brush. With careful timing (know the absorbency speeds of your paper) a dab can give exactly the right depth of colour, or help to gradate an edge. Loo paper works too.

o   Remember that surfaces vary constantly in colour. Look at a plain surface through a pinhole in a card, you will see how the shades in an apparently constant colour are continually changing. Reflect that in your painting.

o   Note the exquisite subtlety with which I have left just the right space for the white trunks of the silver birches in the left hand background. Subtlety - my eye! That was done with white acrylic ink (it can be mixed with hues if required). Don't forget to wash your brush out carefully.

o    Who cares how you get your effects, provided you are using quality permanent materials that work together? I was once painting a pastel portrait in the garden when a pigeon dropping landed on the nose. It was just the right colour, and was incorporated immediately. It is usual, when exhibiting, to specify the materials used; I thought 'mixed media' was the safest description in this case.
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