Mark Warner – Acrylics on Pastel Paper

‘Seascapes in Acrylics’ For Lyme Regis Art Society

On Tuesday, November 17th, 30 of us logged into Zoom to watch Mark create an acrylic seascape on Daler-Rowney 160gsm pastel paper – a new concept for many of us. Mark lives up in Shropshire and was brought up in Wales where he also studied and he showed us other paintings of the Carmarthenshire coast and countryside.

He works with quick, often rough or squiggly strokes in a loose energetic style and will work into a dry painting with black Conte crayon to bring out shapes – always looking to create planes of colour and tone and sometimes printing a monotone copy to find areas of contrast. He chooses a dominant colour for his work, blending other colours into this main colour to give the painting coherence.

Today his paper and main colour were Cerulean Blue. Firstly he stretched frog tape across the horizon,sticking down the top edge only, and then scrubbed in a blue sky, building up lighter cloud areas. Removing the tape, he mixed Cobalt Turquoise and Cobalt Light for the sea area adding cerulean in layers.

Creating shapes and composition

For the foreground rocks, without washing the previous blues from his brush, he got a dark mix from Prussian Blue and Cadmium Orange, then roughly sketched in rock shapes with Orange and Turquoise, adding Burnt Umber and more of the blues before using a clean brush to wash Naples Yellow across the sandy foreshore. A combination of Cadmium Red and Prussian Blue laid down rusty blue-purple shadows on the rock/sand seaweed.

After the break, he moved to thinner riggers to add more details, rolling his brush to bring more definition to the clouds and wave shapes.

He was not afraid to add streaks of vivid reds and oranges as highlights for, as he said “Don’t be afraid to experiment. If it doesn’t work, it can always be painted out!” It was a really enjoyable afternoon sitting watching with every brush stroke right in front of you and it was great seeing friends’ smiling faces after such a long time.

Lyme Regis Art Society

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I really enjoyed theSeascapes course with Mark and felt I learned a lot. The format worked reallywell - sketching at gorgeous coastal locations in the mornings, then a demofrom Mark back in the studio, followed by an afternoon of painting. Thank youfor sharing your painting technique - I’ve come home with lots of new ideas. Markstruck a good balance between instructive guidance and  encouragement todevelop our pictures in our own way. I think your calm and friendly mannerhelped put us all at ease.
It was a lovely group of fellow artists.
The food at Westcott Barton was delicious and our accommodation in thefarmhouse was very comfortable - I slept really well and the location was so quietand pretty. 
All in all a lovely Art Retreat. Thank you so much. 

PH

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Thank you for your splendid demonstration on behalf of our Art Society.

 You have a captivating style of communication, never a dull moment in the whole 2 hours. Loads of inspiring tips and advice showing how you progressed your subject to the breath-taking end. I have painted watercolour as a keen amateur for about 20 years and not had the courage to attempt vibrant dramatic departures fromstatic reality.

Suffice it to say that I have been motivated sufficiently by your superb example to try something in that direction.

It was a splendid week. I thoroughly enjoyed the painting and have stored a lot of such helpful tuition that I hope will come through in my future attempts. I loved your use of colour and managing the palette in such a way to create continuity within the piece, I do hope I can work on that.

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Mark has the ability and professionalism to make you feel at ease and as a beginner to the world of painting this approach is very encouraging. Tuition was delivered in group and also one to one which helped me a lot. Mark's tuition is brilliant for all levels of ability and it was wonderful to see the lovely artwork produced by the more experienced painter. The holiday was extremely well organised and Mark did everything possible to make this a lovely experience for all.

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I always promised myself, one day I would have a painting holiday. What a wonderful experience it was too. A group of strangers became a group of friends. Mark guided us through our week with support, encouragement and enthusiasm. I can honestly say that I had a really amazing time. Mark inspired me to keep up my painting and taught me to be more observant, improved my colour mixing and loosen up!