Drawing and Painting the Landscape - Pointillism

Hurst Point Lighthouse
Acrylic on Paper
19cm x 19cm (7.5" x 7.5")

Lesson 40 of Drawing and Painting the Landscape by Philip Tyler begins with an explanation of Pointillism. It’s a technique in which you apply the paint as small dots of pure colour. The viewer's mind optically blends the colours which makes them appear more vibrant.

It’s a time-consuming technique because it requires the use of small brushes to create the tiny dots. It’s not something I have much enthusiasm to try. Fortunately, Philip suggests “By increasing the size of the brush and mixing other hues the technique of dabs and dashes can be explored.” This seemed more achievable in a reasonable amount of time and also something that might fit into the way I want to paint.

This was a great lesson. I learnt more about working with acrylics, both in the actual painting and in the whole process of getting set up and cleared away. Importantly, I also started to embrace the benefits of acrylics. One of which is you can leave them to dry and paint over things to correct mistakes and to refine the picture.

As well as painting, I am working on composition using the ideas that Ian Roberts shares on his Mastering Composition YouTube channel.

I painted a different view of the lighthouse back in 2012 (see Capturing Light and Negative Painting).