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Message
Posted
On Friday I bought a large canvas, the biggest one I have worked on yet with the idea of painting a large Glasgow central station winter scene. To get the perspective right I sketched in the main structures. I am now struggling with the painting ever since I left the drawing stage and started to paint. I can’t seem to get myself out of the details and although I wanted a more painterly expressionist painting, mines is turning out far from it with the crisp lines of the drawing seeming to influence the painting quite heavily etc, which is not the style I wanted to go for.
If I am being really honest i am really struggling with painting this and not enjoying it at all.
So I am currently tempted to paint over and start from scratch unless anyone knows how I can move this from a detailed painting to the more loose style, I am at an absolute loss as to how to do this. A city scape is also a new area for me, so any tips on how to approach this on a large canvas would be very much appreciated.
Edited
by Carrie Flinte
Posted
Is this oil or acrylic? It looks like oil...... But either way: are you using big brushes? If not, do; or make the brushes you are using bigger (wave a magic wand over them, you silly old fool? No no - I mean, swap them for bigger brushes). Also, walk away from it for a day or three; start something else - take big brushes, plenty of paint, and just let rip on another canvas/board. Then come back to this and apply what you've learned.
What you've done here is to make a quite tight, accurate drawing, and you're painting within the lines of that drawing - which isn't going to give you a loose painting: I do go badly wrong with this approach sometimes, but never draw accurately on the support - I rough-in with dilute paint, and cut back into it to get the shapes: this is far from being the only way to paint, but if you're aiming for loose, it's probably a better way than the way you went with here.
If, when you come back to it, you still find the tyranny of lines making you more precise than you ever wanted to be, scrape it off, if oil, or paint over it, if acrylic, and make a fresh start. As a rule of thumb - your process needs to be organic - in other words, always start as you mean to proceed. There's absolutely nothing wrong with detailed painting, and if that had been what you were after, this would have been the way to go. But if you didn't want that, then forget the careful drawing - take a big brush and rough-in your shapes, refining them to the extent you want to as you progress.
Start with a precise drawing, and you've very likely to end up with a precise painting - loose painting is a frame of mind: you need to let those lines go!
Posted
Martin Kinnear ( Norfolk Painting School) said , “ Break” the painting. He meant, as Robert has said, don’t keep to precision, break the lines. Better to start off with a rough outline and ,only at the end, hone in on detail. Having said that, it’s easier said than done. But I would say that you’ve started off with too much detail. Get the big brushes out and have fun! You can paint over anything!
Posted
Martin's a good teacher - you can also break the lines by not making them too sharp and clear in the first place: I'd always suggest, for loose painting, use at most a stick of charcoal to start your work, and then brush it off so that only faint outlines remain. Go in for your HB pencil, and 'loose' is but a distant dream.... I prefer to draw with the brush and thinned paint, but each to their own.
Posted
Thank you both for the responses. This is acrylic. I did start to think it was a mistake to draw such a detailed drawing and have found myself with a tight painting. I will try what you advise and come back to it in a few days with some bigger brushes and see if I can break it a little. Might be fun to do that actually :)
Posted
Good advice already so I’ve not a lot to add…
I would go for a soft long flat brush, R&Co Evergreen perhaps, and cut into the tight lines leaving a ‘broken’ edge of sorts, just to take off those sharp edges.
It takes a bit of practice to get the right amount of paint and pressure applied, but you’ll end up with the required result.
Edited
by Alan Bickley
Posted
Thank you for all the advice. I decided to paint over this in the end and painted Everest using a palette knife to help keep it loose. I’m going to look into the brush and use the techniques suggested above and give the train station another go too.I believe your brush is not big enough yet for this stage.
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