Demo of Oil painting

Well, Artweeks is over for another year. I am winding down after a total of 7 days invigilating and doing demos on 3 consecutive days.

Here is my corner of the exhibition at one of the venues: Ardington School of Crafts. I was asked to show the work using gold, and you can also see some of my daily paintings.

I set up to do a demo painting. I usually give the gessoed board a rub with yellow ochre oil paints and then draw the main lines in using a coarse round hogs hair brush. I have a mustard salver with a tiny teaspoon inside it, set on a white cloth with a drawn thread hem. The desk light casts an interesting shadow because of the 5mm board which is propped up against the backdrop. There will be more details in the next instalment.

I’ll show you a close up of the display of work first!

Gold work, daily paintings and my folding lectern for people to look at my gilding books. I saw this style of lectern on Lindisfarne Island at St Peter’s church and eventually found one the same. It is called a legilium (don’t you love this word?) and is made of oak with a leatherette bookrest. On the easel you can see the piece for the After Lindisfarne project. (I did two, one for the project and one to keep).

I always have tablecloths for my displays as they make such a difference. Black is good, but I thought it might be a bit harsh with the delicate colours of the daily paintings, so I used my purple cloths. If you ever have to get cloths for displays here are some tips:
Cloths for Exhibitions

• I used to get heavy pure cotton, but nowadays I think I prefer a heavy fabric that looks like cotton but is synthetic because then you’ll never have to iron it. Black is the most useful, but for the book, Rope of Words, we chose purple to match the cover.
• Most tables are a standard 180cm x 85 or 90cm  and 75cm high. Get a cloth that will be 3M30 long when hemmed and at least 1M90 wide. Standard widths of fabric are 115cm or 140cm, but you can get extra wide fabric too.
• The cloth needs to touch the ground on at least three sides so that you can put your packing boxes under the table. If you have to sit at the table to demo, you don’t want it touching the ground on four sides or it won’t be comfy to sit at while you work.

I will be teaching three more courses at Ardington School of Craft this year: (follow the links to find out more)

1 July – Non Traditional gilding with real gold

10th August: Alphabet Soup

2nd September: Oils made easy