posts – Page 4 – Amanda Williams

Sir Alfred East “The Art of Landscape Painting in Oil Colour”

"The Art of Landscape Painting in Oil Colour" by Sir Alfred Edward East

An interesting post on The Landscape Atelier blog this morning mentioned a book called The Art of Landscape Painting in Oil Colour by Sir Alfred Edward East (1844- 1913).

A quick Google search for the book turned up several links to the title as an audio book. How useful is that? An art book as an audio book? What about the pictures? The ones that illustrate the points the author is making? OK, I am curious and will listen while I paint this afternoon.

Keep searching and you might find the Kindle version on Amazon. Do a “look inside” and you will notice two things – firstly it has been badly digitised, the text is scrambled, secondly it has been stolen from Internet Archive (a resource which is free for everyone). Grrr…

Searching again with the name simplified to Alfred East yields success, Internet Archive does indeed have the print book – several versions – the good one is this one: https://archive.org/details/artoflandscapepa00eastrich

Enjoy.

Studying colour in preparation for a big painting

A big painting is a big commitment in both time and materials (and while nothing is being sold the availability of materials is a problem). The answer is to do small studies, sometimes lots of them. The design began life as a Saturday plein air (painted almost a year ago) that I think might have potential to go bigger.

Oil painting 'Saturday factory in May'

So began a series of small colour studies. They are all oil on panel. Some were painted over. Others I didn’t photograph. It does perhaps gives an idea of the work that goes on behind the curtain.

Oil painting for studying colour — Colour study I, oil on panel

And this one which was an mixed media experiment (with watercolour pencil and ink washes on a scrap of unprimed canvas) as well as being a closer look at the truck…

Colour study in ink and pencil — Colour study, ink and pencil on unprimed canvas

Then, wait a month or two, and try again with the oils…

Maybe it needs to be bigger and have different proportions…

Steering wheel easel goes viral

OutdoorPainter Magazine website

Almost! When I posted a few pictures of my steering wheel easel online I was hoping to encourage other Australian plein air painters and sketchers to keep at it through the winter. I hadn’t counted on it escaping overseas to find people wanting to make them as far away as the United States and Europe.

First up, James Gurney mentioned it. (Yes, that is the James Gurney who wrote Dinotopia. If you’re not following his art blog you should be!)

Then Plein Air Today, the enewsletter sent out by Plein Air Magazine, published an extended article. You can subscribe to the newsletter and read their story on the Outdoor Painter website.

I’m delighted, hopefully lots more people will find it a little easier get outside to draw and actually do it. 🙂

Bindoon painting in the rain

Sketchbook drawing: Bindoon petrol station in gouache. (Copyright Amanda Williams, 2015)

A wet day isn’t so good for plein air gouache but it works fine in the car (which is almost as good if a little cramped). The sun came out right at the last minute. Gouache on paper, 21x30cm.

Bindoon is a tiny one-petrol-station town north of Perth.

Wet Saturday

Factory study in the rain

Another plein air study in Malaga (an industrial area near Perth, Western Australia not the one in Spain). Mid winter here, not too cold, but drizzling rain and windy.

Painting in such conditions is a little more athletic than normal because it’s necessary to hold onto the easel at all times. Let go and it will probably fall over. Cleaning or changing brushes – the spare brushes are in my bag, the turp pot next to it – are on the ground at my feet. You will need to imagine the contortions.