Learn to capture the abstract beauty of the natural world in paint and mixed media with this inspiring book.
A practical, mixed media art book, illustrated with finished paintings and short exercises that encourage an experimental approach to painting the natural landscape.
Carole Robson's aim is to inspire readers with her own enthusiasm for art and, as a teacher, to help them to achieve their own artistic goals. Her work is a celebration of the natural landscape, and her intention is always to shine a light on nature in order to elevate its case, especially poignant now that nature is in such jeopardy.
This book guides the reader through simple combinations of wet media such as watercolour, gouache, acrylic and Indian inks. It goes on to examine and include other media and techniques; exploring media that combine happily, and those that resist each other to create interesting and unexpected effects.
It offers strategies for developing concepts and improving design, with a chapter devoted to the formal elements line, shape, colour, tone, texture and surface pattern that can be harnessed to produce impactful work. Readers will be provided the tools and inspiration to find their own interpretations.
Carole covers various aspects of the natural landscape, from close-up details to more distant views, celebrating wild flowers, seed heads, berries and leaves. It peers inquisitively into ditches, hedgerows and verges, and soaks up the idyll of flower-rich meadows. It will visit the tranquility of woodland scenes as well as the atmospheric, wild elements of stormy skies and high seas.
Exciting techniques such as washing or spraying off an image, using improvised mark-making tools, preparing a variety of collage papers such as painting through tissue paper are included; alongside printing or stencilling acrylic gel or texture paste to enliven a surface.
This book offers a unique route into creativity and innovation for the reader, whether beginner or expert artist.
Table of Contents
Introduction 6
Framing the mind 8
The formal elements 14
Exploring your Materials 52
Towards the abstract 62
Irresistible Resists 70
River Birds step-by-step project 80
Layers 88
Nocturne step-by-step project 94
Collage and Print 102
Autumn Seed Heads step-by-step project 116
Afterword 124
Index 128
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About Carole Robson
Carole was brought up in a rural area of North Staffordshire. She moved South to study for her degree and post graduate qualifications at Central St. Martin's School of Art and subsequently freelanced as a book illustrator for major London Publishers. She worked on a wide variety of commissions and her illustrations are published worldwide.
Carole is a mixed media painter and art tutor, working from her studio in Laddingford, Kent, she exhibits in London and the South East of England. Her paintings are driven by strong feelings about ecology and man's impact on the environment; her desire is to elevate nature's case and celebrate meadows and wild places. She has visited the Kent Wildlife reserve, Marden Meadow regularly for over thirty years, which is a rare, unimproved hay meadow connecting us back to a pre-industrial past. Distillation of these observations, memory and imagination form the basis of many of her landscapes. While inspired by all nature she particularly enjoys weedy patches and the fragility of weathered plants, which retain a kind of nobility in their structure even in their dry, decaying state.
Carole is a mixed media painter with a first love of watercolour. She is experimental, combining media, resist techniques and a variety of mark making. In the last few years Carole has brought digital art into her practice and is frequently re-inspired by the new colour combinations or abstractions achieved.
