Anthony Barrow: Acrylic Urban Landscape

To introduce the topic, Anthony showed us a series of his paintings demonstrating a range of techniques, before  revealing the Manchester scene that he was going to do.

He uses a limited palette of Burnt Sienna, Processed Yellow, Cerulean Blue, Ultramarine, Phthalo Green, Alizarin Crimson and Titanium White.

Starting by finding the horizon line, he then applies a quick wash of colours allowing them to drip and run. Next, he starts to draw the subject using a paint brush with a dark colour. In the foreground he blocks in  rough shapes, of the figures that he wants to include in the painting. This helps him to create depth. He then adds the buildings to balance his composition, before painting in the sky.

 After this, he starts painting the buildings, adding shadows and some warmer tones. Here details are starting to be added. The figures are then painted with thicker paint and as the painting progresses, opaque paint is added to the road and buildings. Here he is looking for negative spaces to bring the composition together and make the figures stand out.

He continues to add details, where required, constantly standing back to see where adjustments are needed. His marks are still applied quickly, as he works all over the picture. He looks for highlights and starts to add faces etc to the people in the foreground.  Finally, white is used in areas to finish the work. He explains that he has started with mid tones and then added the lights and darks in this painting.

Like all good demonstrators, he explained his work as he went along and produced a skilled final composition. Next week, we will all be following along on our own work, hopefully it will be as easy as he made it look; although I doubt this will be the case.