Roy Connelly

South Bank Summer Evening

This picture was painted on the South Bank of the Thames in London yesterday afternoon.  It was painted very quickly to catch the effect of the light reflecting off the water between the bridge supports.  It is an effect that only occurs for about twenty minutes so it was necessary to work fast.

The background was painted rapidly in thin paint and the high lights off the water painted next in thicker paint – fat over lean as they say.

The figures were painted on location but after the sun had moved around and much of the sparkle had faded.  The shadows had to be moved back to match the position of the sun when the sparkle was painted.

A good friend of mine has just returned from a trip to the Far East.  Not wanting to fall foul of airline baggage rules, he travelled out with his painting kit but no turps or white spirit. To help him buy some locally, he had translated the words for white spirit and paint thinner via the internet before he went.

After a long trawl through many shops, he was eventually offered a bottle of strange smelling liquid and off he went to do some painting.  Setting up in front of his chosen view, he carefully set out his paints on the palette and decanted some of his newly aquired “white spirit”. 

As he began to lay in the first washes of colour a strange thing started to happen.  The paint curdled then bubbled and eventually started to eat through the gesso priming of his board. Then it dawned on him – he was mixing his colours with paint stripper!

To save him from embarrassment, I won’t name him (yet!) but if you would like to share your tips for successful travelling with oil paints - or even share a few of your own disaster stories - please email me or leave a comment.