Mark Warner
14th May 2022
On a Saturday 14th May 34 members of the Fleet Art Society enjoyed a Zoom demonstration by Mark Warner, who last visited us in November 2020. Mark was very informative and gave good advice on composition and use of colour. One of our members said, 'you could apply his tips to most kinds of media.'
Mark was demonstrating in pastels and black Conte stick, but he also works in acrylics and oils. He showed us examples of his landscape and seascape paintings completed in the different media. For the demonstration he first sketched out the composition with the Conte stick on white paper, then moved to Fabriano blue pastel paper. He likes to work from both a colour and black and white reference photo. He emphasised looking at the different 'shapes' and direction of features in the picture.
Once the composition was sketched out, he moved to the pastels, using pale blues and greens first, and white or cream for the really light areas, using a light diagonal touch and leaving some of the blue paper showing through. He moves around the composition constantly, rather than working on one section at a time. He never 'smudges' the pastels, preferring the effect of the marks and texture. Part way through, he started to add some detail, using the Conte to lightly show the trees and branches and put in more white behind the trees, suggesting clouds.
Mark then continued to add more colour - light red/pink for the light on the path and purples to add depth in the shadows. He said if you put colour down, be prepared to change it. Work back into it by pressing harder with the pastel, to make it more intense. He continued to add more Conte, almost drawing around some of the darker or lighter areas, to bring them forward. Finally, he advised to persist with your work, don't give up (even if it seems like you are not succeeding) ... stand back, look at it, see what you need to do next.
Mark sent us this photo of his completed painting.... A excellent finale to our 21/22 series of demos!
