Will Kemp, Still Life with Apricots (detail), acrylic on canvas
Distracted by Light…or how a bowl of apricots sent my schedule out the window
I’ve been distracted by an apricot.
It’s not the usual thing that grabs your eye but I’m deep in the midst of filming a new simple colour mixing course and the apricots have got me.
They were the perfect subject to teach colour theory for one of the studies and as I arranged them in the studio, a light, impressionistic, muted blue and orange composition began to form.
Pleased with the setup, I headed down the garden for a tea break.
On a brisk winter’s morning in the coastal town of St Ives, we negotiated our way down the steep lanes, past whitewashed slate-roofed cottages to Trewyn Studio.
Home to one of Britain’s most important twentieth-century artists, Dame Jocelyn Barbara Hepworth (1903 – 1975), who lived and worked here for more than 25 years.
Trewyn Studio – now the Barbara Hepworth Museum & Sculpture Garden, St Ives, Cornwall
Her secluded garden studio lies behind the white arched doorway and protective stone walls to the right of the house. The property is now owned by Tate gallerybut has been left as close as possible to when she worked in the gardens under the Cornish light and amongst the seagulls.
Will Kemp, Cornish Fishing Boat, Acrylic on Canvas (detail)
Last week I was lucky enough to spend a few days in South Cornwall and caught the most fantastic weather. I’d visited this stretch of coastline before and enjoyed fabulous Summer sunrises & sunsets, fresh seafood and sparkling Mediterranean colours.
Seasons can often show you new sides of a landscape and experiencing it all again in Winter was totally invigorating.
Atmospheric mist enveloped harbours, it was wilder with more dramatic changes in light, and the sombre Winter palette reminded of James Abbott McNeill Whistler’s landscape paintings.
Morning class! This week we’re in a Victorian townhouse.
I’d been visiting for afternoon tea when the play of light in the hallway caught my eye. The warm sunlight coming in from garden doors to the right cast a real glow onto the yellow wooden wall. The floral arrangement reminded me of the peonies in the Floral Still Life Painting Course, and you can start to see how compositions can be built out from one point of reference.
There was a natural blue light coming from a window in the hallway out of shot to the left, and an orange incandescent wall lamp, higher up on the right, both contributing to the warm and cool tones in the flowerheads.
This step-by-step acrylic tutorial looks at balancing different areas of light and shadow (chiaroscuro) when working on a sunlit room interior scene.
This Still Life Acrylic Project Book is a brand new, downloadable PDF E-Book designed to help you understand light and shadow and create better acrylic still life paintings.
Who’s the E-book for?
An absolute beginner to acrylics who wants to complete a simple still life painting but would like help with colour mixing recipes and drawing guides.
If you have trouble creating a realistic form within your still life’s, then you would see instant improvements through the lessons. Why? Because when you will understand how changes in light influence change in value, it can transform your paintings.
What’s included?
Throughout the e-book, I’ll guide you through 3 full-colour acrylic paintings from start to finish. I’ve broken each lesson into bite-size pieces, so you can complete each stage of the painting within a 2-hour window, something you can easily follow, even if you’ve never painted before.
A 100-page pdf (with 3 x projects, and simple step-by-step instructions)
Line drawings (so you can follow along even if you’re new to drawing)
Colour swatches (that you can print out to match your paints against)
Colour mixing recipes (so even an absolute beginner can achieve balanced harmonious mixes)
Colour reference images (to work 1:1 with your paintings)
By the end of the book, you’ll learn how to filter your objects, look for relationships in stories, scale, size and the importance of planning a colour scheme, knowing all the same principles will apply to future more complicated arrangements.
This week I’ve been working on the last stages of my new beginner’s acrylic project book and wanted to add some pen and ink illustrations of materials & still life setups.
For all the sketches I used the following pens on 220gsm cartridge paper.
Lamy Safari Fountain Pen – filled with Lamy water-soluble black ink
Pentel Aquash Waterbrush Pen – this bad boy just holds the perfect about of water in the brush filament tip to wash-in water-soluble ink
Muji 0.5mm Black Fine Liner – so smooth and works well at any angle under a rapid speed
Pentel Brush Pen – if you’re struggling to create broken line effects, treat yourself to this pen, you can block in deep blacks really quickly
A number of the illustrations below are based on famous still life paintings. I always think looking at the pieces in black and white is interesting as you see how much the composition reveals an artists style. If you compare the shapes in Cézanne’s work to Morandi’s, there is a different set of compositional interests.
Joaquín Sorolla, Strolling along the Seashore, Detail, Valencia, 1909
Inside the Artist’s Studio
In the heart of bustling Madrid, behind a protective brick wall, sits the elegant former home and studio of Spanish painter Joaquín Sorolla (1863 -1923)
Huge decorative iron gates lead you through a lush Andalusian courtyard garden to one of the best-preserved artist houses in Europe, an absolutely priceless experience.
“A Painting is complete when it has a Shadow of a God” Rembrandt van Rijn
Unlocking the Secrets to Creating Realistic Shadows in Sunlit Paintings
I remember being taught at art college that shadows weren’t really present in paintings until the Renaissance period.
And you’d be forgiven for thinking when you look at some beginners work, that they were from Ancient Greece – they didn’t use shadows either!
In live painting classes in the past, when I’ve mentioned the words ‘cast shadow’, students concentration wains or worse, a look of rising panic crosses their faces as if they’ve been duped into a technical drawing class.
I’m not quite sure why cast shadows seem so mysterious, elusive or confusing. Shadows help to ‘ground’ an object and learning to accurately observe them, is the most effective way of making your paintings look convincing.
And just by switching the name around it seems easier to digest.
Shadows cast.
I want to keep it simple without the complications of multiple light sources or atmospheric perspective that occurs in vast landscapes, today I am going to focus on shadows cast outside, by sunlight.
Shadows cast by a tree, by a building, shadows cast by a chair or plant pot. The shadow that is falling onto the ground, or against a wall, or onto a table.
Claude Monet, The Thames below Westminster, about 1871
“Other painters paint a bridge, a house, a boat, I want to paint the air that surrounds the bridge, the house, the boat – the beauty of the light in which they exist.” – Claude Monet
The French Impressionist painter Claude Monet (1840-1926) is best known for his brilliant paintings of landscapes, coastline and water-lilies, but this month saw the opening of a new exhibition ‘Monet & Architecture’ at the National Gallery, London.
This show highlights his interest in architecture, not only compositionally, but how he used it as a backdrop and tool to capture the changing effects of light and I was fortunate enough to catch it this week!
Bringing together over 75 of Monet’s paintings from all over the world, the rooms are unconventionally grouped following architectural subject matter, The Village & the Picturesque, The City & the Modern and The Monument & the Mysterious.
The idea of creating paintings based on ‘picturesque ideals’ influenced Monet’s early work and this concept was part of the larger ‘picturesque landscape’ debate originating in England.
Professor Richard Thomson, the curator of the show, explains,
“One of the points of this exhibition was to take a very famous artist, who people think they know, but to take a look at his work in a different way”
If you’re new to the website I’ve put together a Free PDF ‘Beginners Guide to Acrylics’ which includes a brief overview about acrylic paint, colour palettes, tools & materials as well as showing you how the different areas of the Will Kemp Art School fit together.
I introduce the principles behind my teaching, a catalogue of all the free video painting tutorials on the website and a section on how to find the perfect course for you.
Morning class! This week I’ve been putting together a new ‘Beginners Guide’ for the Art School and wanted to add a few little material sketches. For all the sketches I used the following pens on 220 gsm smooth, heavyweight cartridge paper which can handle light watercolour washes.
Materials – Pen & Wash
Lamy Safari Fountain Pen – filled with Lamy water-soluble black ink
Pentel Aquash Waterbrush Pen – this bad boy just holds the perfect about of water in the brush filament tip to wash-in water-soluble ink
Muji 0.5mm Black Fine Liner – so smooth and works well at any angle at a rapid speed
Pentel Brush Pen – if you’re struggling to create broken line effects, treat yourself to this pen, you can block in deep blacks really quickly
The video tutorial looks at how to glaze with acrylics using a monochrome underpainting with coloured acrylic glazes. We’ll keep the piece’s freshness by building up layers of clear transparent glazes, and all we will use are five paints and a couple of brushes to create depth and dimension in your acrylic paintings.
Acrylics are fantastic paints for teaching you glazing techniques because they dry so quickly. This week we’ll be painting a simple study of a fish, taking inspiration from objects you might see every day and transforming them into paint using acrylic glazing techniques.
I’ll be using a stay-wet palette to hold my tonal colour string mixes in, and then any leftover colours from the painting can go back in there, ready for my next piece.
Want to add depth and dimension to your paintings? Try glazing!
Glazing is a technique where you add a transparent layer of paint over an existing layer. It’s a great way to add depth and dimension to your paintings and bring out the colours or form underneath.
To glaze, you’ll need a glazing medium and a brush. Mix the glazing medium with your paint to create a transparent layer. Then, apply the glaze over your base layer, using smooth brushstrokes to spread the paint evenly. You can build up multiple layers of glaze for even more depth and richness.
Remember to let each layer dry completely before applying the next.
You can download the reference image below to work along from, so grab a brew (maybe a couple of biscuits) and let’s get painting!!…
We arrived in Paris to catch the last few days of a retrospective exhibition of the Swedish painter Anders Zorn (1860-1920)
After a snowy week in England, we woke to blue skies, warm croissants and this amazing rooftop view from our hotel room. I couldn’t resist a quick pen sketch of the row of chimney pots in the distance before we hit the show, check out those windows!
Sketch from Hotel, Rotring Art Pen (F), Pentel Brush Pen and Pentel Aquash Water Pen in A6 size (10 x 15cm) Seawhites of Brighton Sketchpad (140gsm All-Media Cartridge Paper)
In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I’ve been reflecting on all the positivity and creativity that comes through the Art School blog.
So I’d like to thank you all for your support & encouragement this year. The most rewarding thing for me is seeing students progress in their drawing and painting where they’d previously been struggling.
Update on our first batch of Winter homebrew:
I think this will be the perfect accompaniment to the festive food tastings in our local town square, it’s a Pale Ale from St Peter’s Brewery in Suffolk, UK, described as having a ‘caramel aroma, with a pleasing toffee apple flavour‘. Not sure I’m picking up all the flavour notes, but the more sips I’m having, the more experienced my palette is becoming!
How often have you heard yourself say “I’d love to paint but I’ve got too much going on… I’ll have to wait till I’ve finished work….the kids have grown up….
“I wish I had more time to paint but… but, but, but”
Just finding space to set your paints out means upheaval of something else and squeezing a free window of time feels too difficult to plan in an already jam-packed calendar.
And then, having to learn how to paint on top of that ….uh, I can see why you’d think you’d have to wait until you retire!
But is it possible by not painting now, you’re missing out?
What if you don’t need more time to paint, but you need to paint, to give your mind a much-needed refresh?…
