Expressive Painting with Tim Benson

45 minute oil on panel 

Yesterday was another NEAC painting session at Heatherley's. This time the tutor was Tim Benson.  I missed the opening talk as when I arrived at the train station in Stowmarket, I was surprised to find it was replacement buses.  Then the district line wasn't going to Wimbeldon so I had to walk from Earls Court - I arrived just before 11:00 (10:30 start) and had to set up the six colours Tim wanted us to use: alizarin crimson, ultramarine blue, lemon yellow, white, burnt umber and cadmium red medium.  We were to use a big brush (at least 1/2 inch). Tim wanted us to use thick paint and to work expressively to capture a close up of our model.

It was interesting to work with one fat brush and took concentration to keep the colours from getting muddy. Making corrections with thick paint doesn't come naturally to me so I scraped with my palette knife to draw. Tim wanted us to find the natural colours we saw and moving around after the first pose gave me the chance to see the way the light changed the skin colour significantly.  Unfortunately I did not have a bigger canvas for the final painting (there were three paintings over the course of the day) as it would have been impossible with my transport constraints and I could see this scaling up and painting with thick paint changed the challenge significantly.

I found Tim a sympathetic and astute teacher and enjoyed the constraints of the day.

1 1/2 hr oil on canvas