beggining Painting

Kay, what you want is - plug, plug - my e-book Oil Paint Basics. But whether you buy it or not (Amazon Kindle store, JUST in case you're interested...) have another go with oils; I don't pretend they're easy, but I think you can probably get SOME sort of result with them without too much trouble if you stick to a limited palette and just enjoy the thickness of the paint (although you don't have to paint thickly). I find acrylics harder than oil - and more likely to give you that very nasty result I showed up above, until you cut into it with subtler tones, shapes, details and a bit of brighter colour too. You have to keep going with them - don't fiddle may be great advice for watercolourists, but I don't think it works in acrylic: because if you don't, your picture's very likely to look like nothing on earth. Syd and Pat, I've never yet used a grey base - wonder if I should try it.... but it just doesn't appeal to me. I've used terre verte and lead white, in oil of course, and burnt sienna (probably what I used in the picture above), I've used raw sienna too. Do you need any Imprimatura at all .... well, Syd will have nothing to do with it, that's obvious! And no .... I don't think you really do; and I'm somewhat impatient with this stuff about tone at the outset, and don't really see why you can't establish that just as well on white ground as you can on red or anything else. I'm not too sure all of this isn't just a way of putting off the moment when you have to actually start the painting - but, but but.... some things just seem to demand a wash of colour first, maybe more to set the mood than to judge tone? Anyway - I like to vary things, so sometimes I will and sometimes I won't.

Thanks Robert. I actually bought a small set of oils for myself about three years ago - five colours I think - but they remain unopened. One day I will get them out and overcome my fear :) Kay M

Turner had his watercolour paper made for him in shades of grey and also blue and nocturne, he also made his own tinted papers in various shades and when at the scene selected the most appropriate for that subject and presumably lighting etc. As possibly and of course arguably our best painter I always felt that his method of working was worth a look and although I don't paint too many watercolours these days I do always adopt this method. It has to be said that the paper is the only common factor that Turner and I share, as we all know his work is unique in style and colour and his light effects are something else. Moving on to oil and acrylic I always use a tinted background, a mid tone grey made up of Ultramarine, Burnt Sienna and White, depending on the proportions of these three colours you can mix either warm or cool greys. I believe that many professional artists adopt this 3-colour combination, Ken Howard certainly does and our own Haidee-Jo also works from a tinted ground. This mid toned ground makes it easier to establish your lightest and darkest tones more easily. I do on occasions use a deep red as Robert has shown us, you may like to look at my 'Beach at Polperro' completed recently and on my gallery, some of the red background has been left to show through.