Demo: Maxine Marsh - Still Life
Maxine gave us a terrific demo of painting a still life using watercolour, acrylic inks and felt tips.
First of all, she shared her preliminary work, which took the form of initial sketches of the plates and vases, along with colour testing to find the most effective colour combination.
She began her painting by drawing in the main shapes using an hb pencil. She explained that she found a hard pencil gave her more precision and the line sank into the colour once she applied the colours. She used symmetry to obtain an accurate drawing of her vases. She didn’t have them placed in a formal arrangement in from of her but she constantly referred to her preliminary work and photos on her iPad alongside the objects.
She worked on Bockingford NOT paper, explaining that this was a good all purpose paper with a little texture.
She offered a lot of helpful advice for walking with watercolours and inks:
Hold the drawing up to a mirror to check the composition works.
Work out where your highlights need to be and leave them white.
Use masking fluid with a ruling pen only for the finest highlights.
Stretch the paper beforehand if you intend to use a lot of wet in wet.
Begin to applying the colour with broad washes using large brushes.
Begin with watercolours and then introduce the acrylic inks for greater intensity of colour.
Try to keep your style loose and don’t be afraid to allow the colours to flow into each other.
Enjoy and explore.the different qualities of the watercolour and inks!
By the end of the evening Maxine had produced a wonderfully loose, vivid watercolour, with just a few details picked out using felt tips.
Maxine’s workshop is on Saturday, 28th September If you would like to join us please book on the website or email Jen.
