Rodney Kingston Demonstration - Sat 24th Jan

Feb 3
2 min read

Demonstration Saturday 24th January with Rodney Kingston Still Life in Oils

There was a good turn out for Rodney on Saturday afternoon and the audience were very engaging throughout the demo. The subject was a Moka Pot with a black background and orange base. Rodney creates a loose drawing with a long brush, using burnt umber and solvent. He concentrates on shapes colour and light, using a limited palette of 6 colours (more below).

After an initial drawing, Rodney filled in the black background by mixing ultramarine blue and burnt umber. The orange base was cadmium red and yellow ochre, with touches of white. Both these were diluted with solvent. The laying down of blocks of colour of the Moka were thicker as Rodney built up the reflections, which change constantly due to light and movement. He allows the edges of the object to bleed into the background by using alla prima (wet into wet), this also creates softness when adding highlights. Rodney completed the painting by applying thin dark grey lines to differentiate the angles of the object. Finally highlights of white with a hint of blue. Not to be overdone, as tempting.

Rodney would be happy to return for a Workshop. Also as a previous contestant in both Portrait Artist of The Year & Landscape Artist Of the Year, he agreed we could share this link of a speeded up video of his Portrait of Anne Reid.

Rodney Kingston -time lapse video - Anne Reid

Rodney’s Palette & Equipment

He uses just 6 colours - White Titanium - Cadmium Yellow - Yellow Ochre - Ultramarine - Burnt Umber - Cadmium Red. Georgian Oil Painting Paper. Synthetic and bristle brushes, thin round, size 2 for drawing. Square brush for mid-tone reflections. Blocking out with large brushes and getting smaller for detail.

Rodney feels that having a limited palette has taught him a lot about colour and tone. It is based on the Zorn Palette used by the Swedish painter, Anders Zorn, which consists of 4 colours - Cadmium Red - Yellow Ochre - Ivory Black - Titanium White. He perfected this for portrait painting. There are various YouTube videos explaining this pallet.