Paul Talbot-Greaves
Heather can be great to paint. Not only is it a fantastic colour but it also works well with shades of black. This is because violet is dark in the spectrum and consequently works in harmony with black. The starting point of my painting was first to establish the composition and structure. Whilst I was happy with the shapes in my reference, the heather was only on the right-hand side, so I decided to balance this with a little on the left. There were more sheep, but I settled on three, slightly off-centre. When I was happy with my decisions, I drew out a guideline in pencil, then set the darkest values of the picture. I don’t stick rigidly to these darks, as sometimes bits get blocked out as the painting progresses.
Nevertheless, it’s good to get the darkest value down at the start and this helps to give reference to the other values. After I had roughed in the darks, I set the lighter values by thinning colour with flow improver medium. This allowed the white of the paper to provide luminance from underneath in a similar way to a watercolour painting.