A really good four Week course with Kate Hardy.
This took us throught the basic techniques, wet on wet, wet on dry, layering, and finally Pointillism, which I found extremely difficult but am determined to continue trying.
I was ware of Pointillism and the work of Seurat, but just thought of it as a bit of a backwater that didn’t lead anywhere.
The idea that colour is not to be mixed but applied in small dots of complementary colour, leaving it to the eye to mix the colour. Well firstly it is very time consuming, requiring patience and forward planning, neither of which are strong points of mine! I have a basic knowledge of what to mix with what to obtain different colours, but it is the knowledge that I learned in childhood, and I have always been to lazy to study colour theory and the colour wheel.
For our session we used the three primary colours, blue, yellow and red, creating the secondary colours with small dots of the primaries.
We then tackled the still life that we had been requested to bring. One object orange, one green and one purple. So that we could create them also with small dots of primary.
I set up a Gordons Gin bottle a bottle of J2O orange jouce and some grapes. I am amazed by the result, It really works. No green, orange or purple paint was used. I can see patches where I have lost patience or used too wet a brush and the colours have mixed on the page, but on the whole I can see the vibrance of this method of painting.
After the class I thought I would try a portrait. Again I thought the result really lively, though of course, using only the primary colours very inexpertly means the colouring is a little strange. I am going to work on this method and study some colour theory, if I have the patience. It certainly takes me well outside my comfort zone, and would be worth the effort I think.
The next thing I tried was an animal, using a photograph of an alsatian. Now we really hit the problems. I needed shades of brown, and thought blue, yellow to make green, then red to make brown. However, once you move away from the primaries to more subtle colour combinations you hit the different strengths of colours. Blue and yellow OK so far, but red is a much stronger and more dominant colour, and overpowers the others. I was not too displeased with my dog however, and again there is a livliness almost movement in the picture using this method.
The online portrait sessions have begun again, so thought I would try on a ‘live’ model. Because of the slow speed of this work, I was unable to complete the portrait in the class time, but again an extra dimension almost.
Unfrotunately photographing these paintings the camera has to go very close, so the dots are clearly visible. Looking at the pictures from a few feet away gives a much better impression as the dots merge in vision..
I really don’t know if I will continue trying this way of working. It has helped me to know a little more about colour, and I do find it quite enjoyable, even when I get impatient with it.