Workshop - Seascapes in Acrylic and Oil

One of Colin's paintings

Colin Ross Jack, who had demonstrated for us in February, led today's workshop at Wellington Heath Memorial Hall. We were glad to welcome a few non-members and to share a day's painting. Colin had brought plenty of his paintings and many photos to serve as inspiration for our own efforts.

He began with a brief introduction to his method which he was able to demonstrate very rapidly, not by painting but by bringing along six canvases, one for each stage. The stages were: 1. paint the canvas/board with thin acrylic in a mid tone; 2. choose a composition; 3. sketch composition with chalk; 4. sketch composition with thin acrylic paint using a small brush to follow chalk lines; 5. acrylic tonal underpainting, dark tones first than lightest lights then mid-tones; finish rocks with thicker acrylic and texture; 6. finally paint it in oil or acrylic ... enjoy!

Seascape workshop and drawing master class

LAS are delighted Colin Ross Jack is coming to lead a workshop in April on painting a seascape in acrylics and/or oils. 

Date: Saturday 23rd April from 10am to 4pm

Venue: Wellington Heath Memorial Hall

Artist: Colin Ross Jack

Subject: Seascape

Media: Acrylics and/or Oils

Cost: £30 per person, payable in advance. Places are on a first come first served basis. To express interest please email ledburyartsociety@btinternet.com

The cut off date for Ledbury Art Society Members to sign up and pay for the workshop will be Friday, 8th April. After that date places will be offered to other Art groups and interested persons

The Print Shed is running a Drawing Master Class in May, led by Allison Neal who recently retired from Hereford College of Arts where she headed Fine Art. More details and a wide range of other courses on the web: www.theprintshed.net/courses

Seascape

Evie Whitfield was inspired to paint a seascape in acrylics following the February demonstration by Colin Ross Jack. She brought her canvas to our AGM today so plenty of members were able to congratulate her on such a successful painting.

We are also pleased to announce that Colin Ross Jack is going to run a workshop for us at Wellington Heath Memorial Hall on 23rd April.

Inspired by Colin Ross Jack

I was inspired by our February demonstration to have a go myself. I followed Colin Ross Jack's method of putting in the two tonal extremes and then developing a tonal painting before adding colour. It's been a little while since I used my acrylics but I worked fairly rapidly and was reasonably pleased with the result. I painted on a sheet of A3 acrylic paper. I used a tooth brush to create the white marks on the nearest rocks and some of the finer marks on the other rocks.

The land in the background is the island of Bressay and the land in front of it is The Nab, a promontory on the edge of Lerwick. When we lived in Shetland we could see these from the windows at the rear of the house. The view in the painting is from a point about 200 metres from our former home.

If others were inspired by Colin's demonstration, please let me have photos that I can post on the blog.

Colin Ross Jack - Seascape in Acrylic

Demonstration painting - unfinished

What an excellent teacher Colin is. His combination of humour, story-telling and relevant information about the painting process was lively and engaging and he kept our interest in all he was doing. Much of his inspiration comes from the Fife coast, particularly Anstruther, where he grew up. Although he now lives in Worcester, he frequently visits the Kingdom. As my wife spent some of her childhood living on the Fife coast, I know to refer to Fife as the Kingdom.

Many paintings, including today's demonstration, include the Isle of May, which localises them to Anstruther. Some of the stories he told were about his father, James (Jimmy) Jack, who was coxswain of the Anstruther lifeboat for many years, He was rather fond of standing alongside his portrait in the Scottish Fisheries Museum (painted in 1964 by James Selbie). I have to say the museum is well worth a visit as is Anstruther and all the East Neuk villages.

Darkest and lightest values added

He normally paints in oils and uses acrylic only for underpainting but the demonstration used acrylic throughout. He works on canvas and primes it with masonry paint. You can see from this image that he begins with a simple drawing.

Here he has added the darkest tones (black) and the lightest (white). Cheap acrylics from The Works are used for this stage but then he moves on to heavy bodied (System 3) acrylics from Daler Rowney.

You can see more of his work on his website http://www.colinrossjack.co.uk/ though the images there are rather small and do not do justice to his work.