Learning to Paint Bluebell Woods

Week three of Peter Cunningham’s Learn to Paint with Acrylics course at the ARTBANK Bunclody proved especially rewarding. We painted a woodland scene with drifts of bluebells! Really. We all did.

Úna rightly proud of her finished and most enchanting painting

Jon King (the ARBANK Bunclody Curator) also crafted a poem to celebrate the class. We'll get to that later.

A Look Back

Last week’s painting was of a watered gorge in shadow that we painted onto a black stage. (Read Week Two's blog post for details).

This week’s painting breathed light and colour into our being.

Straight Down to Business

It began with a very business-like forming up of our fellow students and preparation of our equipment and drawing of two water vessels for our brushes. Papers were taped down while canvas boards were assigned to their easels. Paint tubes arranged themselves to hand and the brushes lay in anticipation.

We were ready to get painting.

Getting Started - Painting a Sky

Peter explained what we were to achieve this evening. There were few raised eyebrows of disbelief this week. After last week’s painting boosting our confidence, the long draws of breath were more in feeding the brain with oxygen than accidentally depleting it in awe.

And into his palate Peter dolloped Titanium White and painted in an invisible tornado shape with a FAN' brush (Úna) at the centre top of the stage (paper ready-taped on MDF board). Before we didn’t see anything, Peter then toned the white down at the edges with Cadmium Yellow (Pale) graduated outward toward the margins of our skies.

Brushes bathed, tubes squeezed, and pigments mixed on our own palates, and we set to forming our white on pale yellow funnel with broad, confident dabs and strokes with Peter keeping up the momentum and setting pace.

I found the brush fibres dragging out of my too-cheap fan' brush and tried to dig them out. It quickly occurred to me that they didn’t really matter and that they might form their own woodland shapes, so I left them. But I promised myself to find a more effective fan' free of alopecia before I had a bare fan.

Pure Cadmium Yellow (Pale) foliage framed the pale yellow of the sky at its edges and a narrow band of background foliage and shadow was stroked into the bottom centre of the tornado shape.

So far, so good. My language barometer to my right was mostly around Certificate 12.

Peter swapped to a Rigger brush, and sketched in a triplet of young trees with Burnt Umber. Now, we’ve all done branches each class over the past weeks, so we are confident…yet, here’s the pressure of placing actual bark production into our arbour. (Certificate 18 from my right). My own trepidation levels increased. But this is what we are here for...said Peter.

I was delighted having only picked up my first Rigger brushes from Sarah at Different Strokes on St Michael's road, Gorey that afternoon.

Certificate 18 painting

Trees!

We followed behind Peter adding first the small, and then growingly larger lifeforms. Brown-stained trunks – in more ways than one! To some relief, we went back to our fan brush with hues of green and dabbed in a little more ground, grass, and woodland flora “planting” our trees in the Earth.

It’s natural to see trees behind other trees, but having sighed in relief at creating those in what was becoming the background, there’s a certain reluctance to cover them and a risk of their shapes blending together.

Dee's light touch shining through

Peter read our minds (and the raised Certificate Level from all corners), and introduced the concept of painting a birch-barked tree in the foreground. This defined it against our now retreating earlier trees and gave a smart-minded new focus and interests.

More woodland ground to fill the canvas and some leafiness in the canopy.

Composition - Jon too!

Coffee Break

Time to break with a welcome cuppa arranged by Jon and for our acrylic paint to take a turn at drying. We also had a moment to raise our heads from our own worlds that we were creating to take in our fellow students’ work.

Again, I am surprised and pleased that we all have a different style when using the same techniques. I worked from just a few inches above my paper per habit, and predictably had tried to form close-in details while others succeeded in creating the impression that needs you to stand off from the stage to appreciate its subject’s beauty. I loved them all, even if I did spot favourites.

Most improved student of the evening was, I think Úna. The Language Barometer had broken the scale at times as her trees and wayward fan bristles had promised her a calamity. But now we could all recognise her smooth individual style in creating a fairy book-like illustration of an enchanted glade, “fit for snow White”, as a colleague in study suggested. Very lovely.

Bluebells

A chocolate biscuit later, and Peter delivered a small drop of a deep violet paint for us to mix sparingly and delicately into a dollop of Titanium White. Bluebells!

Using my furry fan' brush, I quickly found the new colour to be as hazardous as veterinary “purple”: it’s very strong and gets everywhere without care. But it looks lush when mixed well.

On went the dabs of bluebells in the woods; drifts of them having a great time in the dappled light and shadows.

And We're Done

Now sign it. We’re done. But noticeably tonight my fellows didn't all just finish what they were doing, but worked on a little to be finished. There's a difference.

"Creation"

A new poem by Jon King - its public premiere!

Each Monday the eight settle down

Amid easels, paint, brushes and water.

The Maestro explains the task for the

Evening, then picking up a brush he

Applies acrylic white and yellow.

Overlaid with brown, trees begin.

The Students follow the Master

Emulating his strokes, colours and style

To populate the evolving image as the

Blank canvas undergoes transformation.

Over a sea of grass, trees develop leaves,

Shadows are cast to give depth. With a few dabs

Bluebells appear in drifts. Final touches.

Nine versions of the original Bluebell Wood.

Thanks, Jon :)

Look Forward

And next week? Well, next week we’ll be painting a river scene complete with willows and reeds because Peter says so. And we're starting to believe him!

We need to prepare with a canvas ready-painted with one quarter Burnt Umber and a fresh new colour of Burnt Sienna if we can find it. (I'll be tripping out to Sarah's "Different Strokes" store in Gorey.)

Peter showing us our homework for next week

Gallery

We are all fabulous

Look at this week’s gallery. There are nine pieces of very real art in it.

And don't forget, YOU can achieve this too!!!