The Sunday Art Show - How to draw a cow head

This week, we draw a mixed media cow head using watercolour marker pens, a flat, clean, wet brush and some atelier interactive acrylic paint. After doing some gestural line work of the cow's head, the clean wet brush is dragged through the watercolour to create some tone. Next, I add some purple lines and follow this with acrylic highlights. Good fun to experiment with unusual colour combinations.

The Sunday Art Show - En Plein Air Seascape Painting

This week we return to the beautiful beach Widemouth bay in Cornwall for a ten minute en plein air mixed media seascape painting. Materials used: Watercolour paper (smooth finish), Winsor and Newton field easel, Winsor and Newton Watercolour marker pens, Winsor and Newton Watercolour paints, Derwent Inktense Blocks, Synthetic flat brushes (1 inch and half inch). Sitting on the sand, work in the open air, I begin having put a few loose lines down with the watercolour marker pen. Next, I block in a few areas of colour with the watercolour paint and follow this with applying the inktense blocks with directly and with a brush. The watercolour markers are used again for a few final lines. This was a really lovely few minutes, sitting in the warm autumn sun, looking out to sea and painting loosely and freely.

The Sunday Art Show - How to paint a realistic black cat in acrylic

In this week's video demo I paint a black cat using Atelier interactive acrylics. Materials used: Daler-Rowney Mixed Media Paper (A3 size) Synthetic flat brushes (1 inch and half inch) Synthetic round brush (size 10) water sprayer Winsor and Newton watercolour marker (lamp black) Atelier interactive acrylics: cad red, cad yellow, ultramarine blue, burnt umber, titanium white Starting with a loose outline of the cat, sitting in the winter sun, created using the watercolour marker pen, I begin by blocking in the cat with a black created from burnt umber and ultramarine blue. Next, I add patches of copper and blue highlights and include a loose yellow and green background. The details of the cat's eyes and face are left to the end, all in, it took around 20 minutes painting time to create this acrylic study of a black cat sitting in the sun.

The Sunday Art Show - How to paint a white goat in acrylic

This week, I do a goat painting demonstration in response to a viewer request. The materials I use are:
WHSmith Mixed media paper (A3)
Synthetic brushes: half in flat and a small round brush.
Atelier interactive acrylics: cadmium red, cadmium yellow, ultramarine blue, titanium white, burnt umber.
Water spray bottle
I also use the website wheeldecide.com to create a wheel of fortune and use it to decide which colour to use next throughout the video. This results in a slightly different look for this painting compared to my normal style, I really enjoyed using this technique to do a fresh style.
The finished painting is called 'Content with the view' - gestural impressionist painting of a white goat with horns standing in a field, with yellow hills in the background, against a blue sky looking off into the distance. Inspired by a goat in Somerset, England. This picture was created with interactive acrylic paint on mixed media paper and I actually used a wheel of fortune to select colours and the order I used them for the first two thirds of this painting. This resulted in subtly different colour combinations compared to my usual style. You can see the hi-res version of the painting here: click on the image to zoom in on a particular section.

The Sunday Art Show - En Plein air painting in a secret arboretum

This week I explore a hidden arboretum in the village of Newton St Cyres in Devon and work on a loose en plein air study of the trees using: Winsor and Newton field easel Winsor and Newton watercolour markers Atelier interactive acrylics: cad red, cad yellow, ultramarine blue, cerulean blue, burnt umber, magenta Synthetic flat brushes: half inch and 1 inch Daler Rowney mixed media art board A3 size Tucked away behind a picturesque English churchyard lies a hidden arboretum. Sitting on the grass, I work en plein air to create a loose impressionism style acrylic painting of the light playing across the trees and grass.