New Workshop Dates

I’m looking forward to my next workshop at Kennedy Art on November 1st.

Here is the painting kit I use for my workshops.
I keep my warm, earthy colours to the left of my palette, white and titanium buff in the middle with a splodge of Liquin, and black and cerulean blue are tucked away on my right.
That’s a little cup of low odour thinner, and I always like to open a new set of bargainous synthetic brushes from “Create” using the three flats. The bigger brush is for blending.

There is one more vital part of my kit; a 16 x 12 inch canvas board prepared with a grey tone. I use a warm grey emulsion. 

It's so much better than painting on a white surface.

My workshops at KennedyArt are proving to be very popular, so as well as 6th December, we’ve added an extra date on the 13th December.
Kennedy's
12 Harcourt St, Dublin 2
Tel: +353 1 475 1749
Email: info[at]kennedyart.com

Workshop News

My next two workshops at Kennedy's are booked out but we have lined up another one on the 26th of October.

If you are coming along to any of my workshops do try to get hold of a set of these brushes. They are super cheap and they have just the right shape, firmness and resilliency for my style of rapid sketch painting.

Contact Kennedy's for information about the workshops.

ph  + 353 (1) 475 1749

info@kennedyart.com  

Still-life with Brushes

Here's another still-life of some brushes in a pot with some linen draped around.
I'm trying to avoid overworking these by continuing to use brushes bigger than seems right for the job.
They are painted mostly with a square flat half inch brush and a two inch blending brush to soften the edges.
In fact I used brushes just like the two shorter ones shown in the pot.
I have also strictly limited my palette.

My Favourite Paint Brushes

Imagine if the best paint brushes you could buy were also the cheapest you could buy.
It sounds too good to be true, but I haven't found any brushes that are better for a day's life painting than these cheapy ones from Create.
I originally started to use them because using Liquin tends to kill your brushes, and I wanted some that were cheap enough to chuck after one use. (Liquin is the fast-drying medium I use)
However I quickly came to appreciate their sharp edge and firmness. And I found that unlike a lot of more expensive, natural brushes, they really keep their shape after they have been used a few times.
I only use the three flats in the set, and they probably aren't really soft enough for glazing, but I would recommend them to anyone doing a painting session in the life room or an alla prima landscape.
I know this sounds like a really bad, blatant advertisement but I promise you it isn't.



This is a painting I did of Geraldine last Thursday afternoon.
You may notice also that I use the tear-off disposable paper palettes. Again this is because Liquin dries so quickly and so hard that it could easily ruin a nice wooden palette.
The brushes cost less than three Euro for a set of five.
Let me know what you think if you try them.