Veronica Colvin

Contemporary Realist Painter

Hands, hands, hands!

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I have a fascination with hands. Over the years I’ve painted different types and styles of hands. My latest work is a small study of Tempe Manning’s hand from her 1939 Archibald Finalist self portrait (see main image below).

Every single time I walk into the Art Gallery of NSW, I head straight to this painting and study it for ages. I absolutely love her colour work, her confidence using chromatic paint, the warm cool shifts and brush work.

Below are some of the hands I’ve painted over the years. I will never tire of painting them.

Creating Colour 4 – Dynamic Colour in Digital Art

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In this webinar Steve Forster gives us a taste of his digital creative process, in particular the way he approaches and creates diversity in colours and colour palettes. Starting with a brief overview of differences – and similarities – between the digital and traditional painting processes, he shows how he structures digital palettes when painting portraits, landscapes and more abstract themes. This is followed by a “wild colour” illustration where, building on a value structure (in the sense of Munsell), he goes on to use the full range of colour expression that digital tools provide.

Portrait Life Drawing

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During the last couple of months, I’ve had a number of models pose for me at my studio and I’ve created a range of tonal / value portrait sketches from the sessions. Each portrait sketch is a result of a one day model sitting – drawn from life.

Most of these sketches were created with raw umber or chrome black, rubbed into a polyester canvas. It works and looks similar to charcoal sketches. I quite enjoy working this way when time is limited, as I’m able to get a lot done in a one day session – specially when the drawing and value / tonal range is more important to get correct, rather than a quick splash of paint and colour.

I also use raw umber or chrome black paint to sketch the original drawing – as it easily rubs off with a kneaded eraser. Once I’m happy with the drawing, I then proceed to tonally construct the portrait with the oil paint.

You can see larger versions of these drawing in my Digital / Traditional Drawings Gallery.

Left to right:

  • Carl – Chrome Black oil sketch
  • Olivia – Raw Umber oil sketch
  • Shane – Charcoal sketch
  • Benedicta – Raw Umber oil sketch

Naked & Nude Exhibition

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The Naked & Nude Art Prize Exhibition is on till Sunday, 15 October at the Manning Regional Art Gallery, Taree. Still time to make it if you can. It’s a wonderful exhibition!

I have a digital oil painting “See Me” in the exhibition, and you can view the exhibition booklet here showcasing all the paintings.

I was at the opening night and it was jam packed and wonderful to have been there to see all the paintings in person.

Dilara – Demo Oil Sketch for Students

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Dilara is a life model and I painted the below oil sketch from a recent portrait painting class I taught at Sydney Art School.

The oil sketch is the result of a couple of sessions demonstrating to students how to paint predominantly Alla Prima (a direct painting approach where paint is applied wet on wet without letting earlier layers dry).

I have a direct style of painting, where I prefer to block in the colours that I see and immediately cover the canvas so none of the white from the background shows through. This approach also aids me to establish colours and values in the early stages of the painting, and providing a solid foundation for consecutive paint layers.

Creating Colour 2 – A Practical Guide for Beginner and Intermediate Painters

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The video recording is now available on the Colour Society of Australia YouTube – NSW Division channel, and like all of the webinars from our Creating Colours series, it will remain permanently available to the public. 

Jean produced and presented a wonderful presentation discussing how oil pigments work and the challenges we face as oil painters working with them.

We had an amazing response – with registrants from 19 countries. Topics covered outlined below:

  • Deciphering labelling on paint tubes (pigment codes, ‘Permanence’, ‘Opacity’, additives)
  • Colour spaces and basic language  for talking about paints, their colours and handling: Munsell, NCS, hue, value, chroma, saturation; rheology
  • Single paints: (Paint is not the same as Colour!) Mass tone, undertone.
  • Two-paint mixing: “tints”, “shades”, “tones”, combinations of chromatic paints, pitfalls and opportunities when using complementaries to reduce chroma. High and low-chroma mixing curves.
  • Three-paint mixing; how to produce all possible hues. Triples that give “good”/high chroma hue circles. Beginning to think about palettes.
  • Palettes: issues to consider when constructing and evaluating your own palette. (This talk will be “palette agnostic” – no particular palette is being presented as being the best, rather tools are provided for painters to think about the palette that best suits their needs and skills at the time.)
  • Basic colour matching.