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6th May 2022: Cloudscape over Ottery in Acrylics, with Matthew Davison
Mathew trained at Bradford School of art and for most of his professional life he worked in TV and film as a director of photography. His art career started in 1978 with elephant sized prints selected at the royal west of England academy . He is a successful artist and tutor based in Devon and since moving to Ottery in 2018 he has been a good friend to OVAS and is an OVAS member. Matthew teaches art and runs courses at Honiton's School of Art & Wellbeing where there are always interesting courses , plein-air days and so on. Why not take a look at what's on offer HERE |
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May 6th was a beautiful day and Matthew was up early and making a pencil and an acrylic sketch from a vantagepoint going up towards East Hill and looking across more-or less to the northwest. The view was of rolled strips of grass and fine weather cumulus and a horizon line of fields, hedges, trees and buildings. In the evening he delighted us with a good-humoured demonstration that ably showed off his knowledge of the medium and subject matter |
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ABOVE: Matthew's pencil sketch. As an aide memoire it includes notes on direction of light etc
RIGHT: An in situ sketch in acrylics |
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Matthew's work materials
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Matthew primed a board with a uniform mix of cadmium orange, phthalo blue and gesso, a ground he allowed to show through in places. His palette was mainly cobalt blue, yellow ochre, raw umber, azure blue [near the horizon], zinc white and, for the greens, a mix of phthalo green and cadmium yellow.
He recognises watercolour as a challenging medium in contrast with which acrylic allows much more versatility in working up layers and adapting creatively with opaque and transparent layers.
He finds he can work well with a simple dry palette, the solution to quick drying being a light spray of the painting and the palette as needed.
He recognises watercolour as a challenging medium in contrast with which acrylic allows much more versatility in working up layers and adapting creatively with opaque and transparent layers.
He finds he can work well with a simple dry palette, the solution to quick drying being a light spray of the painting and the palette as needed.
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As the picture sequence above hopefully illustrates, the composition was lightly sketched out in charcoal, with the receding strips of rolled grass [later appearing in contrasting greens] as the dominant land feature, and a very narrow band of details at the horizon sandwiched between these greens and a towering busy cloudscape.
He likes both the fugitive quality of charcoal and its grittiness if left at the outlines of the acrylic patches. |
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The final painting
