Decisions! Decisions

Clouded Yellow Butterfly

Once a subject for your painting has been selected a good deal of preparation has to be done before you ever think of putting a brush onto paper. First you must decide which of the available media best suits this subject. There are so many to chose from - transparent watercolour, acrylic, gouache, pastels and oils, not forgetting collage and several other possibilities. Or perhaps a combination of media might be the best choice. The decision is yours but it has to be made.

Then having made the choice of medium there comes the choice of support. In the case of the water based media I use this is one of the many papers which are available and there are so many that the choice is often difficult. Of course we have our favourites and will normally stick to one of those.

So now we have our subject and we will paint it with our chosen medium on our chosen support. But how big is our support to be? What shape? Rectangular? Vertical or horizontal? Perhaps square would suit the subject better?

To sort this problem out I usually do a number of small sketches. They don’t need to be elaborate drawings, just an indication of the major shapes will do. All you are trying to do here is decide which shape of support best suits the subject. Once that is done the size of the finished work must be decided.

Almost there now. Clear some working space, make sure all your reference material, sketches, photographs etc. are easily to hand.

Right then! Where do we start?

There are five elements which go together to make a good painting.

1. Composition

2. Drawing

3. Tonal Values

4. Edges and how they are treated

5. Colour

These all demand that further decisions are made!

I am hoping to cover each of these in turn in the coming week. Don’t worry if you are a beginner, it’s not nearly as difficult as it sounds.

Till then keep painting, practice and experiment.

All the best,

Tony

P.S. The picture today is a photograph of a Clouded Yellow butterfly which I took this morning when walking Judy my Border Collie. I first saw these butterflies on Wednesday of last week and today was the first time I have been able to get close enough to one to take a picture.