In May, the Wednesday Class decided to look at the way in which Lingnan artists like James Tan use background colour to underpin their flower paintings. We painted the backgrounds on first and then used a suitably sized brush triple loaded with very dilute white, 30% thicker white and finally tipped in colour. You then need to positon and move the brush correctly to achieve the shapes of the petals required. The results were quite interesting but you need to think carefully about how you paint your background – to get it dark enough – and how to position your colours correctly to under pin your flowers.

James Tan – perfect

Karen Gowlett – from a photograph

Marion Dearlove – inspired by James Tan – background washes could be darker

Marion