DEMO STUDIO Paintings

ROGER DELLAR reveals how he turns location sketches into larger studio paintings, while also flipping traditional techniques on their head

- ROGER DELLAR

Painting en plein air for me is all about trying to capture the spirit of a scene, sensing the atmosphere, colours, smells and sounds. The light plays a huge part of it for me, therefore I limit my painting time to one to two hours with very few additions done later in the studio – and only if really necessary. Sometimes this could even be as simple as cropping the scene to make a stronger composition.

Often my chosen medium is oils as I love the textural qualities and openness of the paint – that ability to add touches of paint into the existing texture.

I generally paint smaller sizes on location, anywhere between 8x10” and 16x16”, and usually on boards rather than stretched canvas, as boards are lighter, more rigid and the light doesn’t shine through as it often does with canvas. From these studies, I can then develop a scene into a larger studio painting in any media.

When working on location, I usually take a photo of the scene before I start, and again after I have finished as well. This is my insurance against events happening like the light changing, the object moving, me being moved on, or, as once happened, a huge juggernaut blocking out the entire scene whilst the driver was on a break.