Oliver's sequence of painting
Hello all,
I really like Oliver's style of painting using lots of light.
I tend to paint starting with the sky, then moving from the background to the foreground. However in some of Oliver's paintings, I cant see how this can be the case. For example in the painting below the large tree is lighter than the wet in wet trees below Corfe castle.
And the plume of steam from the steam train is lighter than the grey clouds of the sky.
My question is, in the lovely painting below, will Oliver have painted the large tree first and then the background blurred trees around the one he has already painted?
And will he have painted the plume of steam first and then the sky around this?
I guess he could have used masking fluid. I do not like masking fluid, and have not seen Oliver using it in his paintings.
Thanks,
Sam
Erik & Edo are quite right. Very simply, watercolour is a medium where every brush stroke and wash has a consequence later in the painting (because it is a transparent medium.) Even painting with a loose technique, much thought and planning is required to arrive at a sequence of washes that will allow you to manage a combination of edges (soft and hard) and the tonal relationship between them (light against dark & vice versa.) I tend to paint my light areas first, normally wet on wet which allows the colours but not the edges to be defined - everything is soft edged. I can then add additional washes and glazes over this, once it is completely dry, to define shapes, normally adhering to the following principle: establish an edge, just once, with the application of you darkest tone. So, in practice, no edges are established when painting the light green of the tree, but it is then established by painting the darker washes adjacent to. This is what Erik rightly describes as negative painting. No masking fluid, just careful planning…but fear not, a YouTube series is coming soon for this. Thanks for your kind comments by the way - much appreciated.