Dry Brush

Today we did the first of four paintings of the same subject.  I chose a photograph of the lake from Grannie's cottage -- which now belongs to my middle brother.  I'm pretty sure he took the photo.  For the dry brush technique we began by painting the canvas black -- or black with one colour.  I added blue.  I was surprised to learn that David Milne used this technique almost exclusively  -- but then I thought about his black backgrounds or exposed bits of canvas.  Once the black was dry we painted with no medium, a dry bristle (not synthetic) brush, using only a small amount of paint.  The effect is kind of like pastel or chalk on a blackboard.