Impasto Painting

Scottish artist JUDITH BRIDGLAND knows how to lay it on thick! Here she reveals how she uses substantial impasto marks to create her bright, expressive paintings

- Judith Bridgland

You paint on both linen canvases and wooden panels. What determines which support you use?

I enjoy working on both, as they each give something special to the painting. I use Belgian linen, as it is better in conservation terms and also preferable when using impasto paint. A linen canvas is made from the long fibres of the flax plant, which have a lovely natural oil within them. This gives a nice flexibility and strength, which means the support doesn’t sag when thick with paint. When you apply a loaded brush to the surface, there is a lovely responsiveness to it, like a tensioned dancefloor.

However, it’s also rewarding to work on a panel, for different reasons. There is a beautiful tooth to the surface, yet a smoothness that means the paint slides across it. It’s nice to have that resistance too. A panel gives a feeling that there is a great robustness underpinning the work.

Do you prepare the supports first?

I give the supports a coloured ground, usually a warm grey or blue, but sometimes lilac, magenta or a deep yellow. It’s good to work on a medium tone, as this not only helps to unite the composition and set the mood of the painting, but also can be less daunting than a stark white surface.

Could you describe how you apply the paint and the tools you use?

Broadly speaking, the painting moves from the general to the particular – large, flat, thinly painted areas to small, complicated, impasto details. Sometimes I will thin the paint with turps and use a large scenery painting brush to sweep in the background, other times a palette knife or the edge of a sheet of card.

I mix the paint on my palette, pick up the amount I need on a palette knife, and make a purposeful mark firmly. I blend the edges of these big volumes of impasto with a small watercolour brush or stipple it in with a small, flat, firm-bristled brush.