Last week I was delighted to attend the Desford and Peckleton Art Club. Theirs is an evening meeting so I arrived at 1830 to set up my easel and get my paints ready. The demonstration ran between 1915 and 2100 with a tea break in the middle.
It is always a strange experience, to paint in front of a group of people. Just as in the studio, you hope that you will achieve the desired results but you never quite know. It’s exactly the same when folk are watching and listening, with the added chance of making yourself look like a fool!
I decided that I would demonstrate some of the current ideas I’m working on so that I could show my thoughts and decision-making process in ‘real-time’. I took one piece that I had already made a start on, the week before. And one blank canvas that I had prepared with a rough coat of black oil paint as a base.
Both pieces were of the same Eagle Owl in different poses. These were photos that we had taken of Max, one of the owls at the Rosliston Owl Centre on our visit back in April.
With the first piece, I was able to show how I begin a painting by working straight onto the canvas with a large brush. How I map out the composition, and my thought process when deciding where everything should go. In the second painting, I showed how I progress a piece after the first layer is dry, working back into the piece in glazes of colour and editing as I go along.
It was a very nice evening and hopefully it was interesting for the group of artists.
