Wokingham Art Society

David Hyde - Acrylics & Landscape. Nov. 20th 2007 Visit him at www.davidhyde.org.uk

David Hyde was a watercolourist originally, moving subsequently to acrylics and oils. He likened acrylic to watercolour in that both dry quickly and can be used as glazes. He painted a farmyard scene, one from his imagination that he hadn’t tried before, with outbuildings on either side of the picture, leading to the farmhouse beyond the yard. He used 2mm MDF board primed with Liquitex Gesso. Matt varnish is applied afterwards; his paintings are always mounted and glass-framed. He suggested the following colours for landscapes: Burnt sienna, Raw sienna, Ultramarine blue, Cobalt blue, Two yellows, Titanium white and crimson. Make bright red by adding crimson to yellow. David outlined all the buildings, using thin, watered down, blue acrylic to establish the composition. Balance is vital, as in still life. Composition and tone are everything. Once dry, acrylic is permanent. Decide what to leave in and what to leave out. Light and distance are more important than colour. He established the light area with a very pale cream mix. He added ultramarine blue to tone it down for distance. Shadow areas were initially painted in pale purple. The sunny farmyard reflects light, so there’s no need to make the shadows too dark. For the distance building, ochre and white pushed the roof away. The cobalt blue sky complemented it. To grey a colour, use a complementary one. Don’t fiddle. Try to get the right tone first go. Establish sun and shade, using opposite colours. Shadows are softer further back. A loose mix of three colours shows all three colours when applied, makes it more interesting and saves doing so much detail. For trees, add red to green for a more convincing colour. Try to make the focal point brighter and funnel the eye to it with use of colour, darker further away, getting brighter at the centre. Add texture with layers of paint. David found it best to stand up when using acrylic and as far away from the easel as possible. A dark muck heap and posts were added to separate the light building wall from the sunlit yard. The building in shadow was lightened with white to keep it murky. He merged the bottom of the shadowy building with the adjacent yard – lost and found. A stone colour was mixed with white first, adding yellow, red and green for the bright yard. More shadow was added on the left hand side to balance the composition. By popular demand, chickens were added as a final touch, using burnt sienna and ultramarine blue, tiny at the back and bigger at the front, all with shadows. The result was a lively and appealing painting with little detail, but lots of texture and tone. Madeline Hawes

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