the imp

This is how I do it

Here's how I start to paint,I don't know how you do it, but I seem to paint better if I have a proper work flow. It takes me a longtime to workout what I want to paint so I rely heavily on Google for " inspiration ", or I have an idea and search Google for images that might be of use. That way I generally make up a rough story board showing images and colours. With Acrylic I don't like using too many colours, things can get muddy very easily, so I decide which colours will work and are going to mix well and stay vibrant. I use an old canvas that I re-use by painting it white to start with and experiment with colours and mixes until I see whether they work together. In the above photo you can see the sample colours for this painting, plus in this case a digital sketch that I,ve done on my iPad. Below are the colours I've decided on.

I generally paint the canvas initially to take away the whiteness of the canvas  then sketch the main subject to get an idea of proportion, composition and perspective, because as I block it in I will loose the sketch I take a photo on my iPhone to remind     me of what goes where. Van Gogh would have been so much better if he had an iPhone !. Having said that David Hockney has embraced the iPad and uses it a lot ..... just sayin.

I then 'Block' in the main colours.In the case of the boat I used white because I wanted the hull to be particularly vibrant so the orange has a bit of a glow.I always paint the sky first if its a landscape, if the sky,s rubbish the painting never works, so its best to start again, and its a lot easier with Acrylic. 

In this painting I really wanted to create a feeling of light and sunshine on a Summer,s day. It is a very limited composition and the boat isn't great, but I have tried to capture the light and reflections and it,s finished ...I think !.