Demo: Susan Coupe - Coastal Textures in Mixed Media
We had an excellent demo from Susan Coupe last Monday. She showed us how she interpreted coastal textures she sees in the source image into a painting.
She started with a warm up selecting pieces of textured wallpaper stuck to a support, advising us to consider perspective with the tighter textures in the background, larger pieces with looser texture in the foreground to create perspective. She then used a limited acrylic palette of cobalt blue, paynes grey, yellow ochre and white to pick out textures. She then moved on to roughly drawing out the scene and building up the image. She did a number of small studies using a multitude of mediums and elements to create texture emphasizing the need to experiment and not be too precious.
The final piece was then constructed by jigsawing all her studies together to create a composition using scraps of previous studies to fill in gaps and link ideas.
There are very few restrictions on what materials to use, the main one being oil paint is not the most useful as it takes too long to dry. Inks, pastels, (both oil and soft), paint, charcoal and then different elements to stick onto the surface.
The workshop at the end of May will be great fun, do sign up for it.
