Adam Lee – Painting with Acrylics & Oils

Our demo this week was presented by Adam Lee, who generously took time out from preparing for his upcoming show at Kaliman Rawlins to talk about the way he works from acrylic to oils in his beautifully moody paintings. Adam showed us really specific ways to use his own techniques, and he was also really illuminating when he spoke about the actual psychology of making a painting, The emotional roller coaster of hating it and loving it, feeling like it’s going to be great, that it’s never going to work, and back again, and how every painting is a discovery.

He showed us how he lays down a ground in very washy acrylic, with a few random blobs. He used pinks and yellows, lighter kinds of colours for the ground and he goes for totally random effects, he likes to surprise himself, give himself something to surprising to start with. Then he proceeds with oils, building up very thin, lean washes, rubbing them back, and working over the top again. He likes to use complementary pairs of colours. On Thursday he was painting with Phthalo blue and burnt sienna

Something he said that I really liked was that if you have one part of a painting that’s great, and then you work away trying to get the rest of the painting to match that part, then it never works, Adam says if you have one part that’s working, that’s the part you should mess up, so it’s as interesting and messed up as the rest.

Julia Gorman 2013

Check out Adam’s show in November:

Adam Lee at Kaliman Rawlins, 9 Ellis Street, South Yarra ph (03) 98262470

30 November  – 21 December 2013