Today I drove to Bristol to go on a lace-painting workshop with Sophie Ploeg. There were five of us around the kitchen table, and Sophie explained the broad principles and started us off with pencil on paper, copying black lace on a white ground. This meant we could draw the lace in pencil on white paper, rather than shade the background to reveal the lace. In oil painting, it's easier to draw the large shapes directly onto a blank dark canvas with a bristle brush, then slowly modify them with a … [Read more...]