An introduction to oil painting by Melissa Wishart 
One Saturday in mid-February, 17 of our members took part in a day-long workshop all about oil painting, delivered by well-known Wiltshire artist, Melissa Wishart. 
These workshops are exclusively for Lacock Art Group members and it’s great to have expert artists/tutors like Melissa giving us their undivided attention to help us learn and improve our art. Melissa’s workshop was the first one featuring the use of oils.
Several attendees have considerable experience of painting with oils while others’ experience of the medium is limited to non-existent, so a few of us approached the day with some trepidation! We needn’t have worried; Melissa pitched the tone perfectly for all levels of experience, with good humour, knowledge, and a relaxed, guiding hand.
To find out more about Melissa’s art and background please visit her website.
In addition to this blog post about the workshop, please take a look at the Oils Workshop gallery page to see more images from the day. 

First steps and fundamentals
Melissa started us off on the fundamentals of oil paint, and surface; paint brands to use, canvas vs boards, and went on to talk about dilutants (to thin the paint), and techniques like glazing (transparent layers of paint that reflect light). Other tips include:

• Use brushes that are as big as possible.
• The energy in your body and how you make marks is key to painting well – use long sweeping strokes. Go for it. Be bold, confident and enthusiastic.
• Oil painting brushes were traditionally made of hog hair but nowadays some very good synthetic ones are available, which are perfectly serviceable.
• A silicone wedge is a useful tool to apply paint to large areas of the canvas.
• Try out different ways of making marks eg upwards brush strokes.
• Use a palette that’s as large as possible so that you have space to mix multiple colours. If you’re just starting with oils a sheet of palette paper is adequate. Cover it with cling film when finished to prevent it from drying out. For the workshop Melissa used a large glass mirror – flat and smooth – as her palette. She advises against using a palette with section dividers because it’s harder to mix and dance among the colours on these.
• Work from dark colours to light, oils can take it – the reverse of watercolours where you work from light to dark.
• A point of interest is that the name ‘canvas’ stems from bygone times when sailcloth material was used as a painting surface.

Exercise 1 – palette preparation and colour mixing
Melissa explained that with oils, the bulk of the work of a painting happens on the palette, through colour mixing, and recapped on warm and cool colours (warm = red, orange, yellow, cold = green, blue, magenta). Our first task was to lay out a palette, putting large blobs of paint around the edge of the palette in a circle, following the colour wheel sequence: Titanium White, Lemon Yellow (for brighter greens), Cadmium Yellow Deep, Yellow Ochre, Cadmium Red, Burnt Sienna, Ultramarine Blue (aka French Ultramarine), Burnt Umber, and Cerulean Blue. 
Using a palette knife (not a brush), in the middle of the palette we mixed a large amount of grey, either from Ultramarine, Burnt Umber and White, or from black and white. This grey, which Melissa calls her ‘mothership’, forms the basis of all mid-tones. We then put blobs of grey around the palette and mixed them with a spot of each colour to mute them. A palette knife is easier for mixing as you can simply wipe it clean with a rag. It’s important not to contaminate different colours on the brush because you tend to end up with muddy colours.

Composition essentials
Having sorted out our palettes ready for action, the workshop moved to the topic of composition. Careful planning here is key – this applies to all drawing/painting not just oil painting, of course. We would be painting a landscape or a seascape during the workshop, a scene of our own choice. 
Melissa suggested using a viewfinder to select the section of the reference picture that interests you most. For a painting to be successful it’s crucial for the artist to have an emotional connection with the subject matter. Our tutor guided us through a number of decisions that need making, in particular:

• First decide what the focal point is to be. This is the main point of interest in a painting, and it’s the artist’s responsibility to direct the eye towards it. 
• Next decide where to place the focal point within the composition. Keep in mind the ‘golden mean’ (or rule of thirds) in art to inform your choice. This is a rule of thumb guide that involves dividing the canvas into thirds vertically and horizontally; the four intersection points where the lines cross are the best places for a focal point. Melissa explained that research shows that the top left intersection point is the most effective from a visual standpoint, partly because our eyes are used to reading across a page from left to right.
  
• Then decide where to put the horizon line - high or low, but not in the middle of the composition. If the sky is stormy with lots of interesting clouds put your horizon lower down the painting so that the sky is a main feature. Conversely, if the sky is the plain blue of a hot, still, summer’s day it’s not going to be visually interesting, so put your horizon line higher up the composition so that the focus is on the foreground of the scene (which is hopefully more visually interesting than the sky!).
  
• Use pathways (figuratively speaking) within the composition to lead the viewer through the scene to the focal point.

Exercise 2 – composition thumbnails
We each brought a couple of reference photos with us to the workshop to base our paintings on. To help us decide on our compositions, Melissa tasked us with drawing four quick thumbnail sketches of our scene to explore and experiment with different compositions. Decide on the view that works best for you, that piques your interest and engages you, she said. Is it better portrait or landscape? What should you leave out of the composition? Where are the light and dark areas?

Mark making 
Having settled on a preferred composition, we then got to work with the paints. Melissa asked us to bring along two canvasses, or boards, suitable for use with oils, about A3 in size, and primed with a ground of burnt sienna acrylic paint.
On the first canvas Melissa asked us to sketch the main lines of our painting with a brush. Next we applied an initial layer of paint to block in the different colours of the main areas, using a palette knife or a silicone wedge to spread the paint on. The wedge allows large areas of the canvas to be covered quickly. We continued to build up our paintings, adding more colour, trying different strokes, blending colours as we painted, and gradually adding more detail.
Melissa encouraged us to use the second canvas to experiment with applying paint thickly – this is known as ‘pasto’. It produces different textures to the painting, adds variety and depth. It’s also useful practice for those who usually use watercolours or pastels, which have a uniform texture. One or two of us, however, tried this out on our first canvas!
She also suggested we try out different techniques to vary the type of marks made on the canvas. 

• Make scratch marks with twigs.
• Splattering is another useful technique, but be sure to mask out areas that you don’t want splatters to go. Use a toothbrush, and add Sansodor fluid (by Winsor & Newton) to loosen the paint enough to splatter. This technique is good for breaking up the surface and adding depth and works well for sand (and gravel). 
• Dribbles - add more fluid to the paint to really loosen it up and tip the board to make it run down. 
• Use the edge of a palette knife to make sharp, straight lines (such as for long grass).

Summing up
Everyone thought the workshop went incredibly fast, which is always a good sign. We all had a great time and learnt a lot, thanks to Melissa’s calm guidance and expertise. She remarked that our group was full of energy, enthusiasm and had a keen willingness to get stuck in. Some of us even surprised ourselves with the paintings we produced on the day! Plus, there may even be a few oils converts among us. With grateful thanks to Melissa for sharing her knowledge with us, and apologies for forgetting to include her in one of our results photos - mainly due to the mayhem involved in herding people into groups!

Finally, if you'd like to see Melissa's work she is exhibiting with Maxine Harraway in Bath at the Pop Up Art Studio Gallery in Milsom Place from 22 March to 7 April, 2024. For those who'd like to take their oil painting further with Melissa she's holding a two day summer school in Bradford-on-Avon on 30-31 May, 2024. Information is available on her website.

A glimpse into the art of painterly screen printing
Gail is an award-winning painter printmaker who has a reputation for semi-abstract landscapes designed to imbue a sense of calm, which she creates through screen printing.  She delivered a demonstration to members of Lacock Art Group and guests towards the end of January. The focus of the first part of the demo was an overview from Gail of the screen printing process and her particular approach, while the second part involved audience participation giving people a chance to have a go at printing.
​Gail is, understandably, protective of some aspects of her own artistic process so this blog gives more general explanation of what’s involved. 

What is screen printing?
In its simplest form, ink or paint is pressed through a fine mesh screen to transfer it onto paper (or other surface, such as fabric) and produce an image. The mesh is blocked with something to prevent ink/paint going through in places where you don’t want it to. In this way, an image is built up by printing several layers of different coloured paint, each time masking specific parts of the mesh.

You can block parts of the mesh with pieces of paper (newsprint), which can have hard edges or ripped edges to allow a varied effect. For example, if your image is of large stones/boulders you would print, let’s say, three layers, blocking out different parts of the stones at each layer with a different colour, creating light and dark areas that give the stone a rounded effect.
The printing process is all a bit experimental so happy accidents can occur; you’re never quite sure how a colour might come out when printed over. 
Another way to block parts of the mesh screen involves a photographic process. This consists of spreading a light-sensitive emulsion on the mesh. Once the emulsion is dry, you draw your image on a transparent, mark-resistant surface (like an acetate sheet) with black mark-making tools (like graphite or chinagraph) and expose the screen to UV light. The black marks prevents the light from fixing the emulsion thereby creating spaces for the ink to be pushed through. The UV light makes the emulsion harden, and the hardened areas prevent paint being pushed through the mesh – a stencil effect.  The emulsion is washed off, leaving clear areas where the paint can be pushed through to print an image.
​Screen printing has been around for centuries and is also known as silk screen printing, due to its Chinese origins when silk was used as the mesh for creating wood prints.  Screen printing was popular in the 1960s, partly because it lent itself so well to making posters and prints of the type featured in pop art. In the 1990s a new, grained plastic was launched that enabled lithographic marks like washes to be created. 

Monotype v monoprint
The two main forms of screen printmaking are with and without stencils. The two different kinds of print are monotype, and monoprint.
Gail uses the monotype approach. A monotype print is a unique edition of a single image – a wholly unrepeatable one off. Gails finds this exciting, you build up the layers, and respond to the printed result as you go, which is more like painting. 
​Monoprint has an element of a repeatable matrix - is a print made in a series where the main image is repeated but each print has slight individual differences, marks or embellishments.

Essential equipment
Gail made her screen printing unit herself, to her own specification. As shown in the photo, it consists of a bed section onto which paper is placed. A hinged frame, containing the mesh screen, sits on top of the bed. There’s a small gap between the mesh section and the bed, known as the ‘snap’, created by attaching a piece of thicker card to the bed at the top and bottom sides.
Likewise, registration stops have to be put in position on the bed section to line up the paper and ensure the image is in the same place for at each print layer.
A potential issue with using a DIY setup rather than a professional print setup is that paper can stick to the mesh during printing, which can cause unintended marks – known as ‘halos’ - that you may not want. 
You also need a squeegee rubber blade, to move the paint from one end of the screen to the other and push it through the mesh.

Printing surface and paints
For screen printing you need paper with a smooth surface, thick enough not to buckle when it’s wet. Gail used a paper called ‘bread and butter’ for the demo but she prints on ‘Somerset satin’, which is a heavy watercolour paper. You can print onto anything, including fabric (think calico bags) but you’ll need to change the squeegee blade and use a 40 count mesh to allow more paint to go through. 
Gail uses acrylic paints with a medium mixed in to act as a retarder to slow down drying. Screen printing is a fast process because the ink dries on the mesh quickly and blocks it, sometimes where you don’t want it to.
Alternatively, you can use watercolour paint, or water soluble pastels. Charcoal and water soluble graphite also work well, says Gail. 

Getting stuck in
As part of the demo, Gail gave members of the audience the chance to have a go at printing, using the screen printing equipment set up in the hall and under Gail’s guidance. Joy Tickell, Victoria Cleverley and Tracy Warne gamely stepped up to the plate, with Joy and Victoria first up doing a double act.
Using a variety of colours, they painted directly onto the open mesh with large, random strokes, filling the entire mesh area. They also applied a medium (similar approach as masking fluid) to the mesh to block the places they wanted to leave white when printed. 
When Joy and Victoria were satisfied with their application of paint it was time to make a print.
Gail showed how to hold the squeegee, with the blade at a 45 degree angle to the mesh. Her recommended technique when printing is to stand with one foot behind you and pull the blade down the screen, towards you, pushing down on open aperture. Remember to stop the blade just after the edge of the mesh, and wiggle the blade up slightly before lifting it up to avoid the paint splodging. 
Joy went first. She applied an initial ‘flood coat’ to prime the mesh with paint – supporting the screen as she pushed the paint down the screen with the blade but without any pressure. 
After making the first print Joy did another flood coat back by pushing the blade and paint up to the top, ready for the second print. 
Before Victoria’s turn to make a print, they applied more paint to vary the image, creating a different version of the print. You can see the difference in the images shown.

​Tracy was next to wield the squeegee. This time Gail suggested not doing a flood back with paint, instead using medium only to create a ghost print that produces a much more muted print. 
When finished, wipe off the paint from the screen with a plastic knife and reserve it in containers to re-use another time. Wash both sides of the mesh screen with sponge and water to ensure all the paint is removed, ready for the next print session.  

It was interesting to learn about a technique that most of us are aware of but probably have never tried. Our thanks to Gail for sharing her knowledge with us. You can find out more about her work on her website, where you can see plenty of examples of her amazing artwork.