Step by step: Abbey House Cottage Garden oil painting

I have not done a step by step demonstration for some time and this is nearly one. Nearly because, towards the end, I was in the flow and did not stop as often as at the start to take pictures of the work in progress. However, this will give you a good idea of the process I have followed.

I would normally start with a toned canvas (Using toned canvasses for oil painting), but I had none ready in this format. I worked from a photograph I took last summer in the garden, and traced the outline of the main features free hand.

I went over the outline with diluted light brown because I didn't want the lead from the pencil to muddy the colours.

The colours on my palette were:

• Titanium White,
• Cadmium Yellow,
• Still de grain brun (Mussini) - A light transparent brown
• Cadmium Red,
• Permanent Alizarin Crimson,
• Cobalt Turquoise,
• Cerulean Blue Hue,
• French Ultramarine, and
• Phthalo Blue.

All colours, unless specified, are by Winsor & Newton. The Titanium White is Winsor & Newton Griffin Alkyd, which helps speeding-up drying time. I also use the Sanodor solvent, which also helps with drying time.

At an early stage, I used very diluted paint. Apart for the sky and for the walls of the house, I did not touch the white. I wanted a thin glaze that established the masses and started to express the tonal contrasts.

The initial layer dried quickly and formed the base for the blocking-in phase. I applied thicker paint. You can see the warm tones in the foreground (pink, orange and red) that will enhance the green tones.

I built-up the foliage of the trees and layered paint to create a tapestry of plants and flowers in the borders.

It was time to get the linseed oil out to apply spots of brighter colours. At this stage, I was looking for some texture and colour accents.

Painting knifes are great tools to give texture. I applied paint with a painting knife in the sky, on the dark edge, but also in the borders (scraping it to create random mix of tones).

The final painting is below. Notice how I pushed the house in the background by glazing some Titanium White over it, the day after the first painting session. I also reworked the sky to make it lighter and get a better atmospheric perspective.

Abbey House Cottage Garden - Malmesbury

Abbey House Cottage Garden (Malmesbury) - Oil on canvas (14" x 18") by Benoit Philippe

I previously painted another part of this garden in watercolour. See: Abbey House Garden - Malmesbury, which gives all the details for this garden.

Musée La Piscine - Sculptures

The Musée La Piscine (the Swimming Pool Museum) located in the city of Roubaix in France, is a very unique museum because, as it names says, it is housed in a former swimming pool.

This swimming pool was built in the Art Deco style between 1927 and 1932 by the Lille architect Albert Baert. It was remodelled as a museum in 2000.

The garden outside hosts a few sculptures.

L’Homme des neiges (1960) - Euville’s stone sculpture by Eugène Dodeigne

Inside, the display is stunning with the reflection of the sculptures in the swimming pool water.

Jeune fille à la fontaine (1875) - Marble sculpture by Pierre-Alexandre Schoenewerk

Sirène Assise (circa 1958) – Plaster sculpture by Gilbert Privat

La chasse au nègre - Marble sculpture by Charles Marie Félix Martin

La petite châtelaine - Marble sculpture by Camille Claudel

Buste de Dalou (1883) – Bronze sculpture by Auguste Rodin

Related articles

• The sculptorFrançois Pompon 
• Musée La Piscine– Picasso’s ceramics 

The museum

Musée La Piscine

23 Rue de l'Espérance, 59100 Roubaix, France

Musée La Piscine website http://www.roubaix-lapiscine.com/

Coming oil painting workshop: Landscape in small format

I am going to run a one day oil painting workshop on 16th May 2015 in Fairford. The idea is that participants, with or without experience with oil paint, will go home at the end of the day with a finished 6" x 8" painting.

When:

Saturday 16 May 2015 from 10 am to 4 pm

Where:

FAIRFORD ART SOCIETY

Farmor Room 

Fairford Community Centre 

GL7 4AF Fairford, 

Fairford, Gloucestershire (UK)

Google map

Website of the Fairford Art Society for contact details and to sign-up for the workshop.

Book review - Urban Sketching Handbook: Architecture and Cityscapes by Gabriel Campanario

The author, Gabriel Campanario, is a staff artist at The Seattle Times and the founder of

UrbanSketchers.org.

If you don’t already follow the Urban Sketchers Blog, go there (after you’ve finished reading this post, of course) and add this blog to your RSS feeds. The blog hosts a vibrant community of urban sketchers, which are also featured in the book.

Just browsing the book and looking at sketches by various artists, with different styles and techniques, makes already this book special.

The author, in the introduction, set-out his goal:

“In this handbook, I lay out keys to help make your experience of drawing architecture and city spaces fun and rewarding. These keys—composition, depth, scale, contrast, line, and creativity — are my own gold standards. I put a premium on composition and getting proportions right.”

And the book delivers on this promise.

The style is pleasant and very clear. Here is, as an example, a good quote on composition:

“A well-composed scene has a sense of balance and completeness. Every piece seems to fall in the right place. Move one and the harmony gets lost.”

The tips are down-to-earth and always practical.  Gabriel Campanario has a good way to deal with busy cityscapes where finding the horizon is difficult: “Forget the word horizon and just identify your eye level the line where your eyes rest when you look perfectly straight ahead.”

I also liked his take on adding people to your sketch:

“Add people to create a sense of scale. The height of a person is something everyone can relate to. Add at least one passerby to every sketch. Without that individual, it may too hard to know how big the setting really is.”

The verdict

This book is a quick read, but has a lot of substance. The author gives you practical advice in a concise way.

Beginners will have everything they need to get started and more experienced sketcher will still enjoy this well written and beautifully illustrated book. The collection of different styles will renew your appetite for urban sketching and may stir you in new directions.

Another feature that will delight practicing artists is that, for each sketch, the author specifies the titles and dimensions, but also lists the material the artist used and approximate time spent on the sketch.

The list of material is informative if you want to try new ways to sketch. For instance, the author uses a Lamy Safary fountain pen (Lamy Safari Fountain Pen - Charcoal - Fine) loaded with Noodler’s black ink (some of Noodler’s inks are waterproof, so you can paint over watercolour washes without any problem - for instance the Noodler's Black Waterproof Fountain Pen Ink - Bulletproof,3 ounce). I will give it a go.

The Book

If you are in the US (Amazon affiliate link):

The Urban Sketching Handbook: Architecture and Cityscapes: Tips and Techniques for Drawing on Location (Urban Sketching Handbooks)

If you are in the United Kingdom (Amazon affiliate link):

The Urban Sketching Handbook: Architecture and Cityscapes: Tips and Techniques for Drawing on Location (Urban Sketching Handbooks)