Tabla de contenidos para Issue 9 Volume 4 en Artists Back to Basics

Donna has been involved in the arts most of her life; coming from an artistic family she flourished in the performing arts throughout her youth, taking ballet lessons at one of Sydney’s most prestigious academies, the Scully Borovansky. Singing lessons and piano tuition also filled her week, leaving little time for youthful socialisation (parties). On leaving school Donna tried full-time study in classical ballet but yearned for the stage. It wasn’t long before she was auditioning for any shows that she would be performing before an audience. This included the club circuit in Sydney and Burlesque…ooh la la! Then Donna scored a part as a cast member of the original Australian cast of Jesus Christ Superstar in the ‘70s, and during this time she painted many pieces for friends including…

STEP ONE The first stage was to lay out the four photographs taken at the street corner. I cut and pasted some of the figures from each shot until I compiled a pleasing mix of action in the rain. Once done, I gridded the photograph and transposed the images freehand with charcoal onto the gridded-up canvas. The canvas had already been gessoed twice; and had modelling compound applied with a large palette knife. STEP TWO Now for the fun part. I just randomly applied all the colours I thought I would use across the canvas – particularly placing Arylamide Yellow Deep on the man on the left. All the colours were diluted with Atelier Varnish Medium to enhance the luminosity of the paint. STEP THREE Starting at the top right,…

The Painting Process Greetings fellow travellers. In a previous article, entitled, “Is there a painting here?”, I discussed the fact that people are often dissatisfied with copying postcards, magazine photographs, etc. I suggested one cause was that their expectations had not been met, due to their outcome looking different from the original. I further suggested that the reason for this was multifaceted. Firstly, they did not have actual experience of the place or object. Secondly, because they did not have to plan the composition, nor consider the tonal range, nor colours to be used, they did not have to think about the sorts of problems that arise and need to be resolved. Subsequently, they had not really interacted with the subject at any level, apart from the painting process. In…

SETTING UP STEP ONE Using saral paper and the line drawing transferred onto tracing paper apply the design to the canvas. STEP TWO Squeeze generous quantities of paint onto your palette, as this style of painting requires plenty of paint. STEP THREE Line up Cadmium Yellow Medium, Pthalo Green, Paynes Grey. BLOCKING IN LARGE AREAS Cadmium Yellow Medium, Pthalo Green, Paynes Grey, Napthol Scarlet STEP ONE Load the #12 brush with both Cadmium Yellow Medium and Pthalo Green. STEP TWO Begin anywhere in the background area dragging generous broad strokes up toward the edge of the canvas. STEP THREE Work in a fan shape adding more paint as needed. STEP FOUR Here and there corner kiss the brush with Paynes Grey and add this to the streaky finish you are…

• Atelier Interactive colours: Yellow Ochre; Raw Sienna Dark; Arylamide Yellow Light; Arylamide Yellow Deep; Cobalt Turquoise; Cobalt Blue; Pacific Blue; Ultramarine; Burnt Sienna; Paynes Grey; Quinacridone Magenta; Cadmium Orange; Pthalo Green; Titanium White.• Winsor & Newton stretched canvas 91 x 122 cm.• Brushes: One-and-a-half inch Dream Finish paint brush; Neef Number 12 flat stiff synthetic; Neef Number 6 flat stiff synthetic; Neef Number 1; Robert Wade Number 6 Taklon rigger; Winsor & Newton Number 5 round synthetic; Roymac Number 4 fan bristle.• Easel (four wheel castors with ratchet to raise and lower).• Cleaning: Viva paper towels; tissues; Chux; spray bottle.• Palette: Sta-Wet Painter’s Pal.• Charcoal.• Atelier Varnish Medium.• Modelling compound.• Atelier Gesso.• Ruler to draw up grid.• Four 8 x 6 inch photographs.• Perspex painting board.• Masking tape.• Gold…

• 20” X 16” (50.8 X 40.6cm) board, Matisse Structure Paints as listed below, MM27 Low Viscosity Gesso• Mediums: MM31 Open Medium, MM4 Gel Medium, 3D Kindyglitz dimensional paint in Slick Black, Slick White• Matisse Structure Paints: Cadmium Orange Deep, Cadmium Yellow Medium, Cobalt Turquoise, Mars Grey, Napthol Scarlet, Paynes Grey, Prussian Blue, Pthalo Green, Titanium White• Matisse Flow Paint : Titanium White, Paynes Grey• Bristle brushes - (I use and recommend Neef 95 series)- #12 flat, #6 flat, #2 flat, #2 round, #12 filbert• Taklon Brushes - ¼” flat, 3 round, 0 short liner• Painting knife- trowel shape is preferable.• Table easel• Lint free cloth• Large palette• Old toothbrush• Old stipple brush• 2 empty film containers or similar…

GENESIS Are you looking for a Christmas present with a difference? Genesis Artists Supplies may be able to help you. We are now stocking metal measuring spoons, ultra fine brushes and high quality colour shapers as well as our usual range of brushes and Genesis Oil Paints. A great stocking filler or secret Santa gift for those artists who love accuracy in their colour mixing, measuring spoons are a great addition to their toolkit. You can measure a drop, a smidge, a pinch, a dash and a tad. These measurements are from about 1/64th of a teaspoon. They are also great for cooking! A great stocking filler or secret Santa gift for those artists who love accuracy in their colour mixing, measuring spoons are a great addition to their toolkit.…

Canberra born Graham W. Smith (now of Wynnum in Brisbane) commenced his artistic life with a pencil drawing of a racing car (at under five years of age). The artist still has it in his possession today. At the age of 14 he was doing perspective drawings of his family home in Sydney, as well as watercolours of the launching of Sputnik and sunset scenes. Having a grandfather who painted in oils and watercolours in the Sydney Rocks area in 1905, and a father who was a cartoonist, helped fuel young Graham’s desire to have fun illustrating English castles and battle scenes for his history lessons. Graham did his first large watercolour in 1967 and shortly after that he joined the Nepean Art Society where one of his quotations was…

Somewhere (perhaps in these pages in this magazine) I devoted an article to understanding your paintbrushes. I made a suggestion that there were three “fundamental” processes that affected the marks made by almost all paintbrushes. They were: There comes a point when you have so much paint on your brush, you completely negate the effect that the shape of the brush will have. It may be fine for painting very loose, thick, impasto, impressionistic pieces, but leaves a little less room for finesse • The amount of pressure applied• The amount of paint it is holding• The amount of medium added to the paint I broke it down into those three groups because I wanted to simplify things, and that's a great place to start. For some more information on…