Exercise 1 – Tonally graded washes
Setting up 3 sheets of paper, I tried graded washes in 3 seperate colours, French Ultramarine, Violet and Cadium Red diluted with turps to an almost watery consistency.
Tonally Graded
French Ultramarine, A4, oil wash on paper
Basically I was painting with coloured turps, the alcohol in the turps evaporating very quickly and to be honest I found it really difficult to get an even covering as I tried to work really quickly down the page. Even with practise it didnt really get any better. I went on to try this technique in both a Violet and a Cadium Red (Hue), the Cadium being the easiest to apply, the Violet being the hardest as the colour tended toward black if applied direct to the paper without turps at the darkest end of the scale. On the plus side, the paint dried really quickly.
Wet in Wet blending
I couldnt really get the hang of this, the paint was too dry to really create a ‘wet in wet’ effect. I was expecting a similar ability to that of watercolour but it didnt behave at all the same way. I’m still working on this.
Exercise 2 – Overlaying washes
Using one of the original graded washes, I put a further graded wash over the first using a Violet colour over the first.
Overlaid glazing
I like this effect, it somehow enhances the original blue and the effect of the violet sitting over the top of the blue is great.
On the whole I found these exercises difficult and I’m still not sure I’ve done or learn what I was meant to. Will come back to this again in the future.
OCA Painting 1 Learning Log 