Layering, not blending

A technique post! You don't get these from me often.

My good friend Terry Watts and I were discussing things about how the human eye perceives wavelengths of colours, when it can discriminate areas of colour and how changes in distance from the colours influences that curve. Essentially, it's the reason pointillism works - up close you see little dots of different colours but far away your eye isn't able to separate them so you perceive blended colours and larger areas as shapes. Terry did a Open University course called Images and Information that wasn't available anymore by the time I did my OU degree. (But he's going to lend me the books if he can find them.) It described the mechanisms behind this perception. The discussion then veered into quantum mechanics. Which, oddly, our conversations usually do.

This veered into a discussion about how we both work with layers and glazes. Terry uses airbrush acrylics so his technique is determined partly by the materials. He puts down one colour at a time, then passes over the area in again with the same or a different colour to create a visual (rather than physical) blending. In fact, this is actually the same way I work with a paintbrush. Despite very different work Terry and I always find we have a lot in common. (Though fortunately not the beard.) He's occasionally trying to convince me to use airbrush to make my working easier but I keep telling him it's not about it being easy! I like being a paintbrush masochist. My process is most of the joy, though it might not seem like that some days.

1. Lay down very little paint with a dry brush, undiluted 2. Spread it, 3. Dry brush it out as far as possible

In a moment of synchronicity, that very same day I had described my glazing/soft edged technique to a fellow artist on Wetcanvas:

I usually just brush very very rapidly outwards repeatedly until the paint is dry. This takes practice as it's very easy to get a 'line' as it's drying. So then I scrub the line out quickly! I probably even scrub the brush around rather than brush in the usual way most of the time. I work very hard on my canvases, scrubbing them hard and fast quite a lot. (I use hogs hair brushes.) I also use quite large brushes. So basically my method is continual rapid scrubbing or brushing to completely work out any edges. I don't use medium anymore, just water or dry brushing, as I actually want the paint to dry almost as fast as possible the way I work now. If it's delayed it can move too much or lift layers underneath. (But too fast means you can't scrub it to soften edges at all.)

I would stress that I do not blend at all. I only apply one single colour layer at a time and let it dry. The blending in my work is all visual effect from various transparent layers.

I changed to water because I found you could see the layering with medium - almost like pieces of plastic laid on top of each other. Of course that was possibly more evident in my work because of the sheer number of layers I use (keeping in mind my no blending - each color is a new layer and what appears to be one color may actually be many glazes). With water it all appears to be in one layer now, one surface. Though this runs it's own risks of course, thinned to such an extent previous glazes can easily lift with the next colour if not completely dry. Or worse, middle *parts* of them lift and you end up with weird 'holes' and spots. Edges lifting is actually fairly easy to scrub into a new consistent blend. This is probably my biggest problem[...]

1. Lay down very little paint, diluted with lots of water, 2. Spread it, 3. After about 3 applications of this type of glaze.

There, now the world knows. The jig is up. And Terry I did go for a necessary pint after our chat.

Quick note: Airbrush work is NOT easy, and I don't mean to imply that it is. He let me try it once and it was pretty cool, but quite difficult to control. Terry just means it's simpler for some techniques, as a brush is for others. Terry actually uses a brush also. :)