Andrew Macara – painting in oil
27 October 2015
Its great when an artist turns up with a big canvas, not only can we all see it but in Andrew’s case we can all admire the sentiment of using big brushes to go with it. Andrew has been painting for 50 years, he always paints in oils, he has tried watercolour once and acrylics too, but didn’t get on with either.
So he travels around the world with his fold up easel, his oil paints and canvases and captures the vivid scenes of everyday life painting as he says ‘sunshine and shadows’.
Andrew had already done a sketch in charcoal of a delightful landscape near Youlgreave in the Derbyshire Peak District (the same size as the canvas) which he propped up for us all to see. A couple of days previously he had gone over the white canvas with a little turps and French ultramarine to dull the white down. It was now dry and ready to be worked on.
Mixing Burnt Sienna and French Ultramarine (Windsor and Newton’s) he began to loosely sketch in elements of the scene, indicating a path, fence posts, trees, and where fields would lie. Then using the ultramarine again with titanium white creating a nice medium blue colour he coloured in all the shadow elements of the painting, which left only a few areas white.
He then began to work a bit more on the trees using burnt sienna, and dotting bits of it on walls. The sky was painted in Phylo Blue, a gorgeous zingy colour which brought the picture to life.
Next he used a rag to lift out blue areas where the snow would lie on a wall or fence post or the side of a tree, he then applied quite thickly, in quick flicks, the snow on the tops of the stone, the high contrast with the shadow made the painting jump out.
Finally he placed in the shadows children playing snowballs. The painting would be worked on for the next couple of weeks, and then left to dry for six months before varnishing and framing.
It was an inspiring evening full of colour which was enjoyed by all, thank you Andrew.
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