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Jeremy Taylor demonstration February 2009
Our first painting demonstration in February 2009 was provided by Jeremy Taylor who teaches regularly at Salts Mill and for Bradford and Ilkley College.
Jeremy has a wonderfully relaxed painting style and he encourages his students to think firstly in abstract terms, and then tonal contrasts, followed by the colours and the detail.
He stressed the importance of one strong focal point in a painting. He was enthusiastic about allowing people to pursue their own style and whilst painting he talked about several famous watercolour artists and their styles and techniques.
Jeremy completed two paintings in the afternoon, one a winter scene and another a sunlit moor in autumn – both amazing paintings.
His main message seemed to be not to be frightened of putting paint on paper, just have a go and learn from lots of practice. He also advised members to develop their drawing skills as this improves
general art ability.
Jeremy considers that painting is life-enhancing, it makes you look at the world differently and you become more observational.
Wet in wet washes
Using Saunders 140lb rough paper Jeremy prepared his paper by wetting it down to the horizon. He had done a light sketch beforehand. His view was that watercolour is the most difficult of painting mediums - I think we would all agree with that!
Yellow Ochre was used on the lower part of the sky, with cerulean above it and then a mix of cobalt blue and paynes grey.
After wetting the foreground area, Jeremy used yellow ochre and a little burnt sienna as well as some of the sky colour. He advised that the snow reflected the colour from the sky above.
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Same mix of colour for sky was used for the distant trees, again painted wet-in-wet, varying the shape of the trees. Ochre added to cobalt produces a green that can be used to create some background conifers to break up the skyline. Small scratches were made for the occasional branch or fence. As the paper started to dry some dry brush work created some of the bigger trees.
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Checking progress
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Working on the detail
Using ochre and burnt sienna to make a dull orange Jeremy painted the building and used some of the complementary blue colours for shadows.
Using the sky grey colour he modeled and created shapes and long sweeping shadows in the snow.
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Finished painting
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Second painting of the afternoon
A quick second painting was produced after the tea-break. Wet-in-wet techniques were used again, with washes of ochre in lower sky with a little gamboge. Bands of cerulean blue and cobalt for top part. Ochre and burnt sienna for the foreground and hints of the sky colour. Distant hills were painted in blue tones.
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Lines were put in to suggest receding plains, and a stronger sky colour was used in the foreground. A clean damp brush was used to lift out the path, and long shadows and darker contrast used for the edges. A damp brush was also used to "lift out" the soft woolly shapes for the sheep.
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