I haven't done much painting since coming back from the Charles Reid course in May, but that has mainly because I came back then almost immediately went on holiday. I always have a bit of lean period after a break, so I thought to get me back into the swing, I would have a go at one of the demo paintings that Charles did during the week's course. I had the black and white photo he used for the painting of a baker delivering bread with his donkey and cart (circa 1910), so that one seemed to be the best option. Although my style of painting owes a lot to Charles Reid's style, there are quite significant differences so I wondered how I would get on trying to reproduce what he did to interpret the scene. I don't usually copy work. so it isn't something I am used to doing, but I felt I could learn a lot by analysing, as I went along, how he put his painting together. When he painted his donkey (which was a gray), he rather surprisingly used cadmium yellow orange to put some tone on for the coat. He also put a patch of negative painting in greens/blues behind the donkey's head and it really showed up the paler head. I normally shy away from these very dark patches, but I girded my loins and put it in and guess what - it works! I shall remember than in future. Anyway, getting back to painting the donkey, I felt that most people would have used a shadow colour - blues, purples, etc? However, I gave the cad yellow orange a whirl and it actually worked fine. I put touches of cobalt and ultramarine as well as raw umber (a new colour to me but very useful as I am finding) and I think my donkey turned out ok. The next challenge was the cart. Charles had freaked me out by reaching for alizarin to paint the body of the cart. There had been no clues from the photo, as it was black and white, with the cart looking almost black. I tried out various combinations of colours on scrap paper and had to concede in the end that, in this particular painting, alizarin was the way to go. I added touches of ultramarine violet and cobalt to give some colour changes. The background was done pretty much as Charles had done his and, although I am a great one for leaving stuff out, he left out even more than I would have don,e so I followed suit. I had been putting off painting the man as I felt I could come seriously unstuck there. However, I had to bite the bullet and give it a go. I started with the face and it is only just ok (thought he ended up looking a bit like a pervert lol!). On to the jacket and trousers and they worked ok, I think. I had been putting in shadows as I had gone along (using cobalt, ultramarine and raw umber) and linking them to the object casting the shadow. Just a few passes of a brush with cadmium yellow orange for some foreground that that was it. It isn't a patch on the great man's work by a country mile, but it went ok and was a good learning experience. I also changed from my normal Langton to Fabriano Artistico Rough 140lbs. Charles uses this paper a lot as he says it is the paper he learned to paint watercolour on. I have never got on with before but I had noticed that some of my colours looked much more brash on the Langton than Charles's colours did on the Fabriano, so I thought I would give it another go. Colours definitely look better so I think a permanent change from the Langton is called for. Perhaps my painting has improved and I can now cope better with the Fabriano - who knows? Charles used Shut Nobless Rough (and by goodness, is it ROUGH!) for his version and the paper allowed his brush to skip over the top of the tooth of the paper in a very pleasing way. I couldn't quite achieve this with the Fabriano as even the rough is smoother than the Shut. I also changed some of my colours from W & N to Holbein. In the Holbein, cobalt is a much more subtle colours and their raw umber is stronger and better. I also changed burnt sienna from W & N to Holbeins and it is noticeably less orange and a deeper more pleasing colour. I have posted my version on the gallery and those who asked for copies of Charles's demo paintings will be able to make a comparison (and see my shortcomings and lack of expertise, no doubt). However, I am glad I did it as a few technical issues have become clearer and that must be good.