SIMPLE STREETS

Our special ends with a demo by HASHIM AKIB showing you how simple colour choices can provide a clearer focal point and why your brushes have a big bearing on the outcome

- HASHIM AKIB

1 Apply a base colour

Painting a street scene in acrylics can be tricky, as you contend with rapid drying times and trying to capture too much detail. If your pictures look flat or confused, try to remember that acrylic suffers if you excessively blend or layer it, and that overly diluting the paint can also flatten the colour. Confidently placed brushstrokes are the goal, made with neater, thicker combinations of pigment.

Try using larger flat head brushes instead of smaller round ones. It might take time to get used to working with them, but you will be rewarded with an ability to quickly block in areas initially, while still allowing elements to be defined at the latter stages.

I used them to apply a very thin base colour of Brilliant Blue, Burnt Sienna and Titanium White to my canvas and left to dry.

2 Sketch things out

I made a very simple sketch with a 0.5” brush to establish the main forms. My aim was to familiarise myself with the elements and make mental notes about tones, colours or moods I wanted to convey. I used fairly neat paint for this but I also lightly dampened the brushes to avoid paint drying on them and to provide some lubrication when applying paint to the canvas.

Using the 2” flat brush, I mixed a range of greys from blues, violets, Phthalo Green and Burnt Sienna, adding Titanium White to soften the tones. With these subsequent mixtures of dark greenish greys and mid- or soft blues, I described a few figures.

3 Relax your arm

These early stages are painted with what I like to call the “floppy arm” technique: big brushes are loaded with plenty of paint and direct marks are applied in various directions while avoiding the arm firming up.