Adventures en plein air with Adebanji Alade

This article was originally published in the February 2011 issue of The Artist

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Colours

Titanium white

Cadmium lemon

Cadmium yellow pale

Yellow ochre

Cadmium orange

Cadmium red light

Permanent alizarin crimson

Ultramarine blue

Cobalt blue

Cerulean blue

Hooker's green

Sap green

Burnt sienna

Raw umber

Adebanji Alade’s paintings are full of bustling life. He explains how he overcomes the challenges of working on location to produce his energetic acrylic paintings.

For most artists the problems usually encountered when painting on location with acrylics are the drying time and the colour shifts. However, acrylics are versatile and easy to use, provided you have the right gear to make the process comfortable and easy going.

I visited Cromer in the height of summer to capture the buzz of life around the pier and beach – I hope you enjoy following me through my process and that you too can go out there with your acrylics and express yourself. It’s an adventure!

My paints

I use Winsor & Newton Artists’ Acrylic in titanium white, cadmium lemon, cadmium yellow pale, yellow ochre, cadmium orange, cadmium red light, permanent alizarin crimson, ultramarine blue, cobalt blue, cerulean blue, Hooker’s green, sap green, burnt sienna and raw umber. I arrange these colours clockwise.

Adebanji's colour palette

Mediums for acrylics

Mediums are very important for their range of effects and moderating the drying time of acrylics. I use Winsor & Newton Artists’ Slow Drying Medium to keep the paints moist for long periods of working outdoors; they also give the paints greater flow and covering power. Winsor & Newton’s Acrylic Retarder does the same job, it’s just a bit thicker. I use Galeria Heavy Structure Gel for areas where I would like to have heavy texture.

Adebanji's mediums for acrylics

Brushes and boards

I use mostly fan brushes, bristle, synthetic and mongoose hair – that I clip to serve my painting purposes (see below). I do this because I love the paint to sit on the surface, with minimum texture of the board or canvas showing. I noticed I could only achieve this with a fan brush; it is very thin and can just pick colour blobs with less paint getting stuck in the bristles and can almost match a palette knife for clean colour application and straight-edge applications. I also use riggers, sable and synthetic, and long-handled filberts, bristle and synthetic.

Adebanji's clipped brush detail

All the paintings here are on Winsor & Newton canvas board, sanded and coated with gesso white mixed with a little yellow ochre and burnt sienna, which helps remove the glare of the white canvas. I use a brown pencil for sketching because it is less obtrusive, and have a little bucket of water for washing brushes that I attach to my easel with a string.

Palettes

I use two palettes, I have tear-off disposable palettes for mixing the colours on, which I either hold in my hand or stack up against my easel, as shown below. The other is a Daley-Rowney Stay Wet palette on which I lay out the colours – I have this set up so that I can keep the colours on the palette clean. I don’t use the sheets provided because I found that the sheets move during transit, causing the colours to mix up, so I just use the deep well. It’s good because it also has a lid to preserve the colours.

Adebanji Alade's plein-air kit

DEMONSTRATION: Cromer from the Rocket House Café

Adebanji painting Cromer from the Rocket House Café.

This photo shows how I was positioned in relation to the scene in the distance. It was an interesting scene with a Z or S shaped composition in order to connect the background to the foreground and back again. I love these kinds of scenes and I was ready to give it a go!

I started with a monochrome underpainting of the whole scene using a mix of burnt sienna, a bit of yellow ochre and water. I did this because I wanted the orangey feel of the wash to peep through in the final piece. It will also help to spice up the blue in the sky, as they are complementary colours. I added some ultramarine blue to the mixture for some of the darker tones and sketch lines. At this stage I made sure all the large masses of sky, beach, road and architecture were all mapped out on the canvas board, the value of drawing and constant measuring is vital here.

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At this stage I decided to whisper from the background, becoming louder as I got into the foreground. I laid in the sky, beach and buildings with broad sweeps of colour – you can see how bold and free the applications are, and how the orange and blue interact. It already looks interesting.

FINISHED PAINTING
Cromer from the Rocket House Café, acrylic, 14 x 18in (35.5 x 45.5cm)

All that I needed to do at this stage was to work on the front building and the Z-like roads, after which the dynamic part of adding the figures would come in. A beach scene never looks great without figures – on a day like this it would be buzzing with life. For the front building I mixed peach-coloured paint from cadmium orange, white and cadmium red light and added some heavy structure gel, which helped to make it stand out from the background buildings. It is a focal point in the painting and the added texture makes it look interesting. I blocked in the road with lighter tones of yellow ochre, raw umber and white, warming it with some burnt sienna as it got closer to the foreground. I quickly added detail to the boat as I thought it was going to move, painting it in a very direct manner, shape by shape. Then came the figures – oh I couldn't wait! I saw some children coming down the Z-shaped road, lots of them wearing blue and yellow shirts. So, with my sable rigger I just stabbed in hints of those colours in the right scale and following the right movement. Then I added some highlights to suggest sunlight effects. I then moved to the beach and sprayed different blobs of colour in dot-like forms as I saw them; this basic impression makes the most wonderful impression of figures, provided the paint is applied in the same way the figures are seen, and making sure the scale is right for where they are placed. Once this was done, I just added a few details around the painting, enhancing some darks and recovering some lost drawing lines, and then I had to stop. This was a really fun scene to paint!