Members welcome talented Roy Lang to their latest meeting

Axminster Art Society welcomed Roy Lang, well known seascape painter, to its recent meeting.

He started painting after watching demonstrations on TV whilst recovering from an operation, later joining the Society of Amateur Artists and winning their Artist of the Year award. He now enjoys demonstrating and meeting artists from different societies.

Using a Reeves board coated with white gesso and thin yellow ochre, his sketch followed the rule of thirds and spread diagonally across the board. Preferring Windsor and Newton Georgian student-quality oils -a buttery texture easier to work with than the artist-quality paints – Roy has a palette of his own ready-mixed colours kept in the freezer until needed and used later with a small squirt of oil.

Whilst painting, he washes his brush in low odour thinner, stored and re- used when clear, but later soaks his brushes in neat Fairy Liquid and rinses them in hot water. He uses hogs bristle filbert brushes plus little flat brushes and large mop brushes for blending.

Roy only adds pure white at the very end of his painting so starts at the top of his board with a pale yellow sky, using rapid criss-cross strokes to blend this into lime green.

Cobalt mixed with white and a touch of raw sienna is worked back to this paler area before blending with dark grey in the corners using a clean mop brush. We asked for a misty sunset image and there was sunshine burning through yellow mist as peachy colours blended into areas of a purple mix of ultramarine and scarlet lake - a thin white line marking the horizon under the sun.

Roy kept this palette for the sea, with a main wave breaking over foreground rocks, its crest a very pale yellow, and a mix of pale sap green, ultramarine and burnt sienna blending light under the curl, whilst for the choppy boiling water between the rocks, he rolled his brush with a mix of manganese, cadmium yellow (pale hue), across the water.

For areas of reflected light and cast shadows, final touches of white or a mix of ultramarine and burnt sienna made the finished picture a delight. Roger Clemens will hold a workshop on this in All Saints Hall on Saturday April 1.

The society’s next meeting in The United Reformed Church Hall will be on April 19 from 2.30pm to 4.30pm with Rob Dudley’s watercolour demonstration “Rivers”

For further information visit the website

www.axminsterartsociety.uk