Dawn Jordan

13 Jan

“Light in the Landscape – oils”

Happy New Year Everyone!

Our first artist to demonstrate in 2026 is Dawn Jordan who is a local plein air and studio artist painting with oils. She is also very organised and tidy judging by her very neat set up at the front of the hall.

Dawns subject today was a beautiful sunset at Lympstone. So grab a cuppa and prepare yourself for a bit of a tour, working up and down, back and forth, around this image… land, sky, water, boats, birds and a sunset.

Working on 3mm MDF board that had been prepared with 2 coats of gesso in white and a 3rd in a pale blue/grey, Dawn first puts down outlines in thin oils in a colour similar to the main painting. This is achieved by thinning her paints with Sansodor mineral spirit which she likes because it doesn’t smell. Imagining her board was divided into 3rds, she started with the horizontal line of the estuary one third up.

Dawn begins with the darkest grey tones which she mixed using transparent oxide red and ultramarine. It is at this point I shall apologise for any spelling mistakes with colours as not being a painter, many of them sound like a foreign language me.

Squinting to make out the tonal differences Dawn reminded us to use slightly warmer colours for the foreground which she ‘scratched’ with a dryish brush in a very thin layer.

As you work from dark to light, keep adapting the first dark grey mix on your palette adding lighter and warmer shades.

Moving on to the areas of water, Dawn used vertical strokes and a flat brush for the reflections, adding in cerulean blue and white.

Next came the clouds and we were reminded that lights show up better against darks… which sounds obvious but when your head is full of shades, tones, perspective, line, balance, cool, warm and all the other things needed for a composition… a timely prompt never hurts.

Now working in slightly thicker paint which Dawn mixes with Michael Harding’s Miracle Medium (this makes the paint flow more.) Dawn mixed white, yellow ochre and cadmium red light for the areas of sunset working from the lightest tones first. Keep the area where the sun is to go clean so as not to muddy the colours. Remember whatever you do in the sky… mirror in the water.

Back to the sky with a mix of Ultramarine, Cerulean blue and white applied with quite scratchy strokes to the top of the image. Next to add in the sun using Titanium white (which is a cold white) mixed with cadmium yellow. Remembering to add a bit of the sunset colours to the white of the clouds.

Using the very edge of a small pallet knife Dawn highlighted the thin horizontal line of the estuary, her paint getting thicker as the painting progresses.

Almost there now, just the ‘little dots and dashes’ that finish the piece… Using series 272 round brush she added tiny boats, masts and birds in the distance… And it’s as easy as that! Or so it seams when you have a talent like Dawn’s.

Dawn knowledgeably sprinkled the demo with little tips and advice… listed below.

Start with thin paint and progress to thicker fatter paint.

Clove oil added to a sponge in you paint box, keeps your paints soft.

You can freeze your oil paints.

Dawn uses a piece of L shaped plastic edging from DIY stores to house her dollops of paint at the top of her palette. This can then be slotted into an old plastic paintbrush tube for storage. She also uses flat, cold meat containers like the ones found in Lakeland stores.

E clips can be used to space your wet paintings during transportation.

Clean brushes in Sansodor or Murphy’s soap oil.

Dawns easel is a New Wave palette with side trays

Dawn favours Rosemary and Co Hogg brushes in size 2,3 and 4.

After about 3 weeks use Gamsol varnish to finish.

Colours used today….

Here is what I managed to catch… hope it makes sense to our painters.