LAST MEETING REPORT:

Thursday, March 17, 7pm

Demo by Catherine Hearding -“The Winter Landscape”

Catherine Hearding gave a “last salute to winter” in her demo painting the winter landscape – a subject which has become her signature.

She first creates a small value study in black, grey and white which helps determine patterns and serves as practice in good brush work. She then chooses her palette of not more than five colors, writing them down, and making a color study.

Her value scale is always at hand. She had toned the paper in quinacridone gold and permanent rose before her demo. Her first step was to place water with a large flat brush on all areas which would not be white. Then she poured her mid tones in cobalt blue and winsor blue into the wet areas. While still wet she softened edges with a brush.

After the paint was done moving she used a hair dryer to complete the drying.

Her second layer was a mixture of quinacridone sienna and cobalt blue to create greys. She scraped in branch shapes with a palette knife, then put in her darks with a third layer of thicker paint (cobalt blue and permanent rose) to create detail.

She darkened the trunks behind the branches by painting negative spaces. Finally, using a needle brush for smaller details she finished with calligraphic line work. “The problem with demos,” Catherine stated,”is that there is no time to work out problems.”

Back in her studio she would “let the painting talk to her” before completion. This “last salute to winter” brought our a large crowd of NorthStar members who were amazed at the creation of a fresh snow scene in just three steps. Catherine Hearding made it look so simple.