The bad workman

A bad workmen blames his tools. In my case I just put my inability to get the result I want down to my lack of ability. However I recently went to a local art club and the tutor who runs it was able to help me with a couple of things. Firstly to have a good palette top mix on, I have been using any old base of single use food packaging and when its gets too dirty I fling it. However it’s hard to see the colour you’re mixing accurately and it turns out a light grey sheet of glass is a better solution and having tried it I am convinced.

A much bigger problem was that in the past I’d use whatever paints from hobby shops. These cheaper paints change shade and colour when they dry, much like the emulsion we decorate our houses with. This is because the PVA body of the paint is white when wet but dries clear. Not only that, but cheap paints dry really quickly and while that’s great for some artists I prefer to be able to blend and mix colour on the canvas. So I have now invested in better quality paintsfrom US company Golden specifically their slow drying range Golden Open. My first real go with all this new stuff is this year’s Christmas card, a puffin.

For this work I wanted a stormy Atlantic seascape to highlight the determination of these little birds to survive and feed their young. This is only my second go at painting the sea and to be honest I was not really happy with my first attempt, so would the new paint and tools make a difference?

I did find it much easier to get the effect I wanted and was able to mix a batch of colour which remained wet almost like oil paints, even staying workable over night. Blending tones on the canvas is also easier, for example I was able to quickly get ȧ moody sky and then create seascape that I felt was a good picture in itself so I painted the whole scene.

I was pleasantly surprised that I got the look and drama I wanted and for some reason this image doesn’t look as good as the real thing. Anyway it was now time to turn the “nuffin” painting into a puffin painting.

The photos I used were from a trip Juliet and I made to the Farne islands between Newcastle and Berwick on the North East cost of England. There are thousands of these odd looking members of the auk family nesting on a National Trust owned islands. We were able to land on one of these and watch them weave their way past a gauntlet of gangster like gulls, beaks full of fish for their pufflings. Puffins have special hooks in their beaks that enable them to fly with a mouthful of sand eels as they return to their burrows. It was great fun to watch their aerobatic displays and we got great photos

I used one of Juliet’s shots where the puffing was skimming the waves with its catch and then adjusted the direction of the lighting and tone to make it look right against my seascape. I hope you like the result and have a Happy Christmas

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