The Eye to Westminster, acrylic, (46x42cm)

Take inspiration from JMW Turner as Glyn Macey shows how to paint a London sunset with an iconic landmark using acrylics.

Turner's influence

Whenever I am asked ‘Who was the greatest painter of all?’ there is, for me, really only one contender, Joseph Mallord William Turner – arguably Britain's greatest ever and certainly one of the world’s most influential painters of all time. Without Turners influence, Monet would have become a very different artist, and without Monet’s influence, Mark Rothko would never have developed his distinctive soft-edged abstraction style.

For me, pretty much all international and domestic artistic styles since the 1830s can ultimately be traced back to Turner, like a paper trail plotting a course back to the birth of abstraction. But, far from being a pure abstract painter, Turner was able to use narrative and illustrative techniques within the context of abstraction and the broadly applied atmospheric washes of paint to capture a moment in time, to capture emotion and to tell stories. I have always been fascinated by this aspect of Turner’s later work: his ability to work in a loose and often frenzied state, the kind of state where painterly 'accidents' might happen, but being able to resolve the resulting work with a few touches of deft detail – details that could bring the whole work together.

Inspiration from JMW Turner

Using watercolour techniques with oil paints, Turner created a luminosity and fluency in painting never before seen. This exploratory way of working has always had a big influence on my own work. I too love to let the first painterly marks speak for themselves, the underlying strokes and 'accidents' create the life and movement of the painting, before the problem solving challenge of bringing the artwork together with a more considered approach.

As an artist, I often visit and paint areas of London, in all of its vagaries, from the tourist traps of Tower Bridge and St Paul’s Cathedral to the less salubrious corners of the city. On a recent visit I found myself near the amazing London Eye. It was a warm evening on the banks of the Thames; a fiery, rich sunset glowed behind the statuesque Houses of Parliament and, in the foreground, was the dark silhouette of the slowly turning wheel. Wow! Turner would have loved this, I remember thinking. And indeed in 1834 Turner rushed to the banks of the Thames to witness first-hand the burning of the Houses of Parliament.

This contrast of history and modernity, either side of the ever-flowing Thames, and all topped off with a sunset of rose, gold and cadmium seemed to me to be a pure Turner scene. I took some photographs of the scene which, as is often the case, proved to be disappointing, so instead I hastily sketched the elements before me with added written notes.

Back at the hotel I was able to cut up and rearrange the drawings, changing the composition and creating an arrangement that worked for me, one that captured the essence of my 'Turner' experience better than my photographs ever could. I was able to move buildings, people and river traffic at will and miss out elements that I found superfluous, adding, changing and playing with ideas that suited my vision.

Creativity is play, and playing is fun, right?

Demonstrations: The Eye to Westminster

Stage one

A simple line drawing is used to work out the best composition to capture the statuesque London Eye and distant Westminster. I used a soft 4B pencil on a textured acrylic paper.

Stage two

Cadmium yellow and orange were washed over most of the sky and foreground to stain the white surface. I used purple and burnt umber to mix a liquid dark tone that would give subtle changes in tone and allow any underlying warm yellows and oranges to glaze through. It was added with the No.4 flat brush to create distant spires.

Stage three

I mixed neat purple with water to the consistency of semi-skimmed milk before washing over the sky as shown. Then I used the corners of the clean flat brush to add touches of pure titanium white straight from the tube

Stage four

More of the dark mix was used to delineate the top of Big Ben and darken spires where necessary. A watered down glaze of orange and umber gave the tower a warmth. Then I mixed a little burnt umber into a dash of purple to the consistency of single cream and scumbled it into the purple clouds

Stage five

The same dark tone was used to enrich the shadow areas in the Thames reflections. Working light over dark, I mixed a touch of purple with plenty of titanium white to create a pale mauve. This was used to give the sky some extra life and interest with the filbert brush. Note the brushstrokes describing the movement of the cloud formations

Stage six

With a little of the mauve mix I ran my brush across the river, following the plane of the river added a few flicks of wet paint for interest and a few brief touches of the dark mix. Then I took the pot of black ink and the small brush and, with a steady confident hand, worked on the wheel, following the pencil lines. The crisp detail helped to push the looser Westminster work into the distance slightly

Finished painting

The Eye to Westminster, acrylic, (42x46cm)

As I worked on the wheel details I decided to darken the foreground and loosely blend the foreground with the river, not wanting a nagging crisp line between the two. Then I added the final wheel spokes. You will notice that the black ink is much darker than the mixed 'dark' colour used throughout the painting process. This technique is one of the ways we have at our disposal to create real depth in our paintings.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE TURNER INSPIRATION FROM ALAN BICKLEY

About Glyn Macey

Glyn Macey studied graphic design and marketing at Falmouth School of Art. He is the author of Glyn Macey’s Cornwall, Glyn Macey’s American Sketchbook, Acrylics Unleashed and Glyn Macey’s World of Acrylics and has made several films. Glyn has completed commissions for many clients, including high street retailers, Greenpeace, the RNLI and UNICEF. His paintings can be seen in a number of galleries around the UK. Glyn’s acrylics workshop is a package of home tutorials – for full details of this, his other products and more examples of his work, view: www.glynmacey.co.uk.

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