Line and Wash
Frome Valley Art Group was treated to a delightful afternoon’s demonstration in line and wash given by the brilliant urban sketcher Gary Yeung. Unfortunately, we were on this occasion unable to record the demo for our YouTube channel. This write-up is a brief resume of how the afternoon went.
Upon his arrival, Gary spent 20 minutes sketching with a 2HB pencil from his photograph of Temple Meads Bristol railway station. He began the demonstration by proceeding to ink in some the main strong lines of the buildings and road to ensure the perspective was right without creating a precise vanishing point, then worked around the drawing looking for the larger shapes , ie the clock tower of the main building is square, the remainder of the tower a second square. Larger shapes were then divided into smaller ones, frequently checking back to his photo, emphasizing it is not imperative to follow the draft drawing lines precisely.
It was interesting to learn Gary does not use a ruler when drawing nor does he concern himself with creating straight lines, concentrating instead on shapes, likening drawing a building to building a real house – you need to work on the walls and roof first before adding things such as doors and windows.
Gary re-iterated how to achieve perspective when sketching people, in that heads should all be on the same level, those further away having smaller heads than those in the foreground, working on the theory half body height for feet to crutch, half for the upper body and head.
He then inked in the vehicles, deciding to move one of the cars to outside the frame (it isn’t necessary to following the reference image per se) and making one of them larger to bring it closer, again working entirely on shapes and deciding where the shadows appear, likewise for people in the scene. When adding in detail such as the castellations on the clock tower, he inked in the centre one first, and counts out either side to ensure they fit in, likewise with windows, again emphasizing you do not have to include every single detail.
When ready to paint, he wetted the paper with clean water using a sable flat brush and taking account of the direction of sunlight on the image, ensuring all shadows fall at consistent angles. His first wash with yellow ochre was a thin layer over the buildings and when almost dry, a thin wash over the sky with Horizon Blue, mixing several gradients of the colour to give more “punch”. Gary uses Winsor & Newton, Holbein or Daniel Smith professional grade watercolour paints, and using the same blue for the vehicles, pavements and shadows on buildings etc to give harmony to the painting. Shadow colour was created with Ultramarine and Paynes Grey, adding darker tones to the vehicles leaving out what is hit by the sunlight. He likes to leave the outer edges of a painting white to guide the viewers’ eye into the subject matter itself (a great tip!).
Using crimson red and a dirty palette (why waste paint?) he washed in the background leaving small areas of white to show things are happening back there. To add extra highlight in small places he used a wax crayon, ie on foliage in planters, and using Olive Green for a more realistic look to plants. Items further away from the viewer should be painted in a less intensive shade to create atmospheric perspective.
Two hours is not enough to complete the painting and Gary advised that when completed he will use the ink pen to add in extra detail and accents and finer features. We look forward to seeing the completed painting in due course.
UPDATE: Gary has finished his wonderful painting of Temple Meads now. What talent he has! An inspiration to us all.
Gary also brought a wide selection of his artwork for us to enjoy. He is most certainly an entertaining and excellent artist and we hope to invite him back in the future with a view to running a workshop with us. Take a look at his media sites to see examples of his fabulous work.
Just a few of the many comments received following Gary’s demo:
“Thank you, Louise, for arranging the demo this afternoon. So interesting and enjoyable. I would definately be interested in attending a workshop!”
“Very inspirational”
“Really enjoyed watching his picture build up.”
“It was a very interesting & educational afternoon”
“I’m definitely going to give line and wash a try now”
“I really enjoyed the demo. He was great and I picked up lots of tips”
“Very inspiring”
“Would be very interested in a workshop . Picked up a few tips today”
FROME VALLEY ART GROUP 
You must be logged in to post a comment.