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Chris Forsey

12th October 2024

Chris Forsey gave an engaging, enthusiastic and very informative demonstration to over 60 members on 12th October.  His subject was a favourite place of his, St Ives harbour.  He had several photographs as prompts, but mainly painted from memory and to create a pleasing composition. 

For this demo, Chris was using acrylics.  He painted on gessoed mountboard and started by painting a very watered-down yellow ochre wash over the  centre and prussian blue in the foreground and sky areas.  He also used some matte medium to increase fluidity and transparency.  After letting this dry, he then used burnt umber acrylic ink to define some of the roof lines, boats and edges of buildings in the picture.  He impressed by using just the edge of a palette knife to put in these lines.  He said he liked to give an 'element of abstraction' in these lines - but already we could an excellent picture emerging!

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Chris then added some colour to the roofs and harbour wall and put in some deeper blue in the sky for added drama. He made us laugh by saying he had a current "colour obsession" with deep purple and he mixed this with white and indigo for the shadows and added ochre to make a grey-blue for the wet sand.  The buildings and boats were defined, as he constantly moved over the painting, adjusting areas of light and dark to create the effects he wanted.  He insisted it is important to "get the light right".  He again used the palette knife to show some of the boat masts and ropes and  to put in some whites in the buildings.  He used flat brushes throughout, saying they were especially good for buildings.  Other useful tip he showed us was using his fingernail to make little marks in the wet paint, for example to convey a stripe along the edge of a boat, or movement in the water.  Spraying a little water over the  ropes, to break the lines up, was also very effective.  

 

There was a real buzz in the interval and at the end of the demo, as people gathered around Chris to look at his painting in close-up, showing how much we all enjoyed it.  He worked on his painting a little more after the demo and he sent us a photo of the finished piece, which is shown below. 

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