Graham Webber was a new demonstrator to our group so we waited with bated breath to see how he tackled oil painting, our subject being seascape in Norfolk.
A good turn out of members came to watch this very interesting demonstration.
I think we were all surprised at just how young Graham seemed to be, not in our usual age range. With this younger personality came a brilliant sense of humour that we all enjoyed very much.
Graham explained that he painted outdoors on a much smaller board and then came back to the studio and enlarged the painting. With this in mind, he brought along a small maybe 10 x 8 or smaller pre-done painting and then a large MDF board that had been primed with gesso which had acrylic PVA and chalk powder mixed with it to give a texture. This is to hold the paint rather than the paint just slipping around the board.
Graham then told us the colours that he uses and then ran through the actual colours that he was going to use on his demo. He always uses Titanium white, 2 blues a warm and cool, Ultra Marine and Cerulean. 2 yellows Cadmium and Lemon yellow but tonight he was not using lemon yellow. Cadmium red and Alizarine but also sometimes Magenta, no Magenta this evening though. He explained that he uses Veridian Green as this mixed with red makes a really good grey and is a good talking point for onlookers. We all found that amusing as we all know what it is like having onlookers that you don’t necessarily want to paint in front of and need a good distraction. The last of his colours were Yellow Ochre and Burnt Sienna. As a thinner, he uses Zestit that apparently is harmless but does smell very nice, better for those of us that like the smell of these oils, thinners etc.
Graham uses hog brushes and said that they come in a largish brush but wear away and end up almost as twigs or almost hairless brushes.
With all this information now under our belts we watched as he very quickly made a drawing with darkish paint and then began to put in the sky colours. He started from the left side of the picture and gradually lifted the colours from greys to blues.
The whole of the demonstration he reiterated the fact that you should remix the colours that you use, this method keeps the picture interesting to the eye of the viewer. Graham did explain that he tried to get triangular shapes into the picture and also to have warm and cool shades of colour against one another again to add interest to the painting.
This was a brilliant demo, one of the best we have had. A really nice chap, very good sense of humour and really turned out a good painting. One to have back again I think.
Report by Cathy Newton
Pictures by Colin Mossman
