all is well, and my eye is Ok…..makes you think though, it was all a bit scary for a while there!

First of all I’m absolutely delighted to be showing as part of the Tarpey Gallery Open again- it’s a beautiful Gallery with wonderful light-filled exhibition spaces set in Castle Donington in Leicestershire. If you’re UK based and able to get there it is going to be a wonderful show, and really well worth a visit, with so many brilliant artists and a diverse selection of work.

When my eye felt a bit better, I got back to my almost daily practice painting; no pressure stuff to get going again really…The video below shows a sketchbook painting, completed in less than half an hour. In it I’m playing with layering opaque and especially translucent layers, and working with a limited palette, mixing desaturated colours and creating a soft tonal look.

The video is about 18 minutes long, so do stick with it as it does show loads of techniques!

Desaturated colours are very useful in creating a softer, more subtle look, and here I’m mixing them by adding small amounts of other colours on my palette. Even a tiny speck of a different colour, creates a much more subtle look to a painting, and by adding some of those other colours on your palette, you can create a visual unity.

The colours I used here are:- Naples Yellow, Titanium White, Paynes Grey, Cobalt Blue and Cerulean Blue, Burnt Sienna and Perylene Green all Golden I think, and some acrylic glazing fluid (Winsor and Newton).

I used a single flat brush, plus a white Woody Pencil, a Derwent Sketching pencil, and a flat edged palette knife and an old dipping pen for inscribing through the paint layer.

I’ve been walking on a particular local moor; only a few minutes from home…I go early; partly because I’m one of those people who is always awake by 6.00 am, and partly because, very annoyingly for an artist inspired by landscape, and as some of you regulars know, I have really dreadful hay fever….and early is usually better.

Sharing Early Bird, reminds me to pass on a couple of little tips…

Firstly, don’t be scared of rich deep darks in painting, they add so much depth and drama-I would suggest though that it’s so much better not to rely on just black, or even black at all. Basically you can use all three primaries; (any version) or any two secondaries to make your own deep dark-Cadmium Red + Turner’s Yellow + Cobalt Blue or Phthalo Green + Vermillion Red for instance. You can also add colours to different blacks to adjust them and add more richness-I particularly like Paynes Grey (which is Ultramarine and Black) plus Burnt Sienna (Burnt Sienna can stand in for Red), but play with your own mixes and record the recipe when you get one you really like!

I’ve got lots of new ideas and work on the go, so I’m hoping for a whole load of studio time over the next couple of months; well once the digging has stopped and the studio isn’t reverberating in time to the Jack hammers!

Like most artists, I have a stash of a few paintings that for some reason never really worked for me…as I also have a stash of really beautiful canvas on a roll, I’ve decide to put the two things together, and take a few pieces apart and re stretch with new painted canvases. If you’ve never done this, it’s pretty straightforward, you just need to take your time with it…I thought I might post pictures about the process next month in case it’s useful? I will also be cutting up the old canvases and thinking about whether I can use them to collage on new work or if not add them to sketchbooks-hate wasting anything!!

For now a chunk of the canvas is stretched on my painting wall, and I’m well under way with an abstracted painting in soft muted shades of blue and green….I’ll be sharing more about this one next time, so just a few teasers for now.

Well I’m off to check on progress with the diggers so I think that’s probably all from me this month! As always, I hope you’ve found it interesting and I love to hear your feedback and any suggestions for things you would like me to talk about!

*Oh and don’t forget to sign up to my newsletter if you haven’t already, that way you’ll always be first to hear about shows, new work and courses.

I’ll be back at the end of next month, with an audio file and peace returned🤞🤞!! Take care until then and let’s hope we all have a lovely and creative July,

Jo xx

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