The Farmer Poet, acrylic, 8x12in. (20.3x30.5cm)

Hugh Greer builds up his acrylic paintings with different elements for interest and contrast

Working as an architectural draughtsman for over 40 years taught Hugh Greer a lot about accurate drawing.

His former career influences what he likes to include in a painting and how he paints it. He will often paint a scene from memory, or from his imagination.

"I look for a certain degree of accuracy, so my paintings are not total fantasy," he says. "I try to take elements that appeal to me from a particular scene, and disregard areas that are distracting. I do a lot of cleaning up — making the junk look picturesque. I can do this because of my career in architectural illustration, where I had to do that sort of thing a lot."

"I often drive through the countryside to sketch and take photographs because I think it's important to live as much of your subject as you can."

Base drawing

With a reference selected, Hugh makes a sketch from the photograph, usually working on a 9x12in. sheet of paper.

First he establishes the horizon and vanishing point. "I may use two to three sheets of tracing paper over the sketch to see where additional elements will go — this is a good way to do a base drawing. Sometimes I also work out the tone values in black and white. Tone is as important as colour, or possibly more important. A pencil sketch shows you how the tones relate to each other. You may get a colour a little off, but if the tone values aren't right, the whole painting will be affected."

Hugh normally uses a grid system to enlarge the initial composition, although he sometimes uses a photocopier. He then transfers the drawing to the painting surface by using transfer paper, or rubbing graphite on the back of the drawing. "Next I'm ready to start slinging some colours. I work first with big, bold colours and broad brush strokes. I get the board covered to see where I am."

The glow in his paintings is achieved with underpainting. "I get marvellous results by putting down an underpainting and then layering three to four coats of clear gel medium over it — I use Golden Soft Gel, either matt or gloss; you never know it's there. As I paint I can lift out areas with a cotton swab and alcohol. If you're careful you can even lift out small areas.

"I try different combinations of technique — for example, to paint a large tree I'll paint in the darks first and then paint the lighter part over that, or vice versa, or perhaps the tree will be shaped by painting the negative space around it."

Painting materials

Hugh has three supports that he likes to work on, including Crescent 115, a 3mm board with 140lb (300gsm) watercolour paper ready-mounted on one side to avoid the need for stretching; a gessoed Masonite panel; and Multimedia Artboard, a combination of paper and epoxy resin made in the US that is thin and brittle but "tough as nails".

Among Hugh's favourite painting tools are a small brush, a palette knife that allows him to achieve textures with a thin layer of paint, and a ruling pen. "People don't think of using a ruling pen any more," he says, "but it lays down an intense bead of opaque colour. I like to use both transparent and opaque colours, and acrylics are perfect for that."

Hugh's basic palette is cerulean blue hue, anthraquinone blue, diarylide yellow, quinacridone magenta and titanium white (all by Golden). I can use these five colours to mix all I need. You can mix any two of the base colours and you will get a bright, luminous colour, but as soon as you add a third colour, you start to grey the mix.

"Keeping my colour schemes harmonious is easy, thanks to the limited palette and the colours of the underpainting. When you apply thin washes those underpainted colours really come through."

Demonstration: The Farmer Poet

Stage one

Working on a gessoed panel, I created a gradated wash from top to bottom, using thinner colour at the top and heavier at the bottom. I then applied three coats of Golden Soft Gel Gloss, letting the medium dry between coats.

Stage two

I applied a pale blue colour to the sky, and while it was still wet used a cotton swab to lift out colours.

Next I used straight white on the house. Notice how different values can be created with layers of white: the left-hand side of the barn on the left has one layer, while the right-hand side has two.

Three layers were used on the barn on the right.

Stage three

The trees, shadows and grasses in the foreground were added.

Stage four

I used white paint to indicate the snow. A blue-grey colour was used for the snow in the shadows.

The finished painting

The Farmer Poet, acrylic, 8x12in. (20.3x30.5cm)

The grasses and tree limbs were scratched into the surface (the dry surface must be dampened with a damp paper towel before scraping).

I used a ruling pen to create the tree in front of the house.

The full version of this article was published in the July 2007 issue of The Artist.