Monday, March 14, 2011

Josette Nicolle










Top: Affrontement, 80 x 80 cm
Bottom: La Vague Folle

Josette Nicolle is an a painter from Brittany, France. This is a coastline which has inspired many artists for two hundred years or more.
Foam and spray are chaotic but still have form and shadow. Most of it has been suggested with expressionistic brushwork but there are also small areas of precise detail which give the impression of reality. It's not necessary to reproduce photographic detail over the entire canvas. In fact, doing so usually destroys the sense of a real, moving subject.
In the top painting the random nebulousness of the spray is nicely contrasted to the crisp, defined edge of the wave as it runs up the sand.
The medium is acrylic and oil. Acrylics are used in the initial layers of the painting. You can't paint acrylic over oil. Acrylic paint is often used as an underpainting as it's cheaper and much faster drying.

3 comments:

Steve PP said...

Absolutely fantastic paintings, i particularly like the top one.
Great tip too! I hadn't thought of using acrylic as an underlayer.
Thanks for sharing!

jeronimus said...

Hi Steve. I love these paintings. A wonderful balance of energy and detail in the brushwork.
I've used acrylics under oils before and had no problems. Some say you should wait 24 hours for the acrylic to dry completely before painting over with oils but it's usually fairly warm and dry where I live, and I only waited a couple of hours. If you keep the acrylic thin it dries faster and leaves more of the tooth of the canvas for the oil layers to grab onto. Might want to use a matt acrylic if painting on a smooth support.
The gesso that most people prime their canvases with is usually acrylic anyway.

Steve PP said...

That's really useful advice, thanks for that! I'm going to try that!
Have a great day!