​Melissa chose grey as the ‘mother colour’ made from burnt umber, French ultramarine and white. She then mixed blobs of this with various blues, red and yellows to give a cohesive range of colour and tone. Her canvas board had been prepared with a ground of burnt sienna in acrylic.
 
After making a loose sketch on the board in a mid-tone grey with a brush, she then turned to palette knife and started to fill in areas of dark and light from the pre-mixed colours on the palette. The scene really started to come to life at this early stage.​

by Paul Fisher
If you are going to use a lot of wet washes on watercolour paper less than 400gms in weight, your paper will need to be stretched or it will 'cockle' and distort badly making it difficult to get consistent colour tones and hard to mount properly. Here you can learn how to stretch paper in 10 quick and easy steps.

The Australian artist Charles Sluga showed me this technique that he uses when he does his overseas tours. It will give you a well-stretched piece of paper ready to be painted on within five minutes.
I have used this method on previously used and un-stretched paper that had ended up cockled and it has allowed me to flatten the paper by stretching it and paint on the reverse side with success. 

Step 1
You will need:

• A stiff board at least 30mm bigger all round than your paper
• Hairdryer
• Gummed paper tape
• Cold water and large brush
• Paper towel
• Tape measure and pencil

​Steps 6 and 7
Apply water to the first piece of tape   .... and smooth it down over the edge of the paper - do the same with the other 3 pieces of tape.

We often have impromptu mini demonstrations during our weekly meetings. Some time ago Paul Fisher, former chair and member of Lacock Art Group, gave us a 10 minute demo on painting people to help loosen painting styles based on "Bob's Blobs" - no initial drawing, straight in with the brush and loads of juicy watercolour to create vibrant crowd scenes using the wet into wet technique.

The idea is to be loose, starting with random vertical strokes of colour which are allowed to flow into each other on the paper, which is best kept vertical or at a steep angle. This is followed by 'sketchy' vertical strokes of a dark tone for the legs leaving some shorter than others to indicate walking. You don't need to be exact and have two legs for all the bodies - let them flow together and then finish by 'blobbing' burnt umber for the heads, angling them slightly to indicate 'conversations'.

Finish with a stroke or two for the shadows to plant the people on the ground. In the example painting, note the gap left to accommodate the person closer to the viewer (Paul's 'Bath' lady) and also note that on level ground, the top of her head is the same as the more distant people - it's the body that is longer.
Brian (Sherwin's) picture below of Tower Bridge shows how Bob's Blobs are used for the crowd scene to the left of the painting.
With a little practice you will soon be able to use this style to great effect in your own paintings.
NB this blog was first posted in 2016 by Paul Fisher

During an extended coffee break at one of our weekly meetings John Harris, a Lacock Art Group member, showed us how to cut a mount to display our paintings.

After cutting the mount board to the desired external size John drew the required cut-out shape on the reverse side - see image 1.

Then, using his special guided cutter with angled blade, he cut along the lines - see image 2. A professional finish was achieved, with the 45 degree angle of the blade producing a neat, bevelled inside edge. A number of different models of this type of mount cutter are available, some of them already in use by our members. 

There was much interest in this from members, who took the opportunity to gain some practical, hands-on experience. 
NB this blog was first posted in 2017
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