Friday Night with Painter John David Anderson

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On Friday October 21 the Club was fortunate to be able to experience an impressionist landscape oil painting demonstration by John David Anderson. During the demonstration he passed on valuable information about his approach to painting. First he stated that “Art is about you and producing things that matter to you. Artists need that approach to be able to make a statement and to be able to be able to generate a significant artwork.”

Technically the artwork should concentrate on:

A range of values going from dark to light
Clearly define edges
A range from warm to coll
A placement of “fat over thin”

John used a black and white photo as his reference. This helps in getting the values correct and because he wanted to use a colour palette that reflected his feelings about the scene. He typically uses one flat brush (#12 for a 16″x20″painting) for the entire painting. John gave participants a great deal of background information about the products and techniques used to create a painting.

John’s technique was very entertaining and within a little over one hour he had generated a very dramatic impressionist painting of a northern landscape.