Todays activities

 Cartmel workshop with Artist Stephen Ormerod, 26th Jan 2022

Brief introduction of myself; I’ve worked as a professional artist now for over thirty years drawing inspiration 

from all kinds of subjects. My current passion is landscape painting using either Oil or Acrylic to capture light 

texture and movement from photographs I’ve taken on my many explorations into our countryside. For me the 

challenge in my painting is to capture each material, air, water or land so you feel the moment I took the 

photograph. Id like to think I portray this more fully through my depiction in paint than a photograph can ever 

convey and anyway isn’t that the mission of most artists.

I started my career mainly drawing things, using coloured pencils and pastel. I still like to draw particularly in 

black and white, hence todays workshop. I’m standing in today for a very good friend of mine Jo McGrath and 

will be talking and demonstrating techniques using a variety of materials to create black and white images. I 

love the mood and drama you can achieve working in blacks and greys on white paper, for me contrast is 

everything. I like my black to be deep black and the whitest point to be clean and bright. You can’t create light 

on your image without dark and so I developed techniques that gave you exactly that which I will share with 

you all today.

Materials I work with:

 Rembrandt Black Soft Pastel, my go to for great tonal work and deep blacks

 Blending sticks and kitchen paper, for detail drawing and creating tone

 Water Soluble graphite 8B, used on a stretched surface or board for lighter tones

 Compressed charcoal sticks, general drawing and detail

 Compressed charcoal pencils, detail

 Wolff’s Carbon pencils, black detail line work and drawing

 Black coloured pencil, black detail and drawing

 Drawing pens (black), detail and drawing

 Erasers (putty rubbers inc), correction and drawing techniques

 Any good Paper or Line and wash Board, important to use the correct surface.

Techniques:

 Drawing

 Blending

 Using your Erasure to draw as well as correct

 Drawing tone

 Different mark making

 Indenting the surface to create line detail

 Using tissue to blend tone

 Working with the white of the paper to create the illusion of light

 Keeping the surface clean and your hands

 Mapping out your image and cheats

Today is quite fluid and will develop as we progress but here is a rough outline of your day:

10am – 10.30am: Brief intro of my work and what you would like from todays workshop

10.30am – 11am: introduction to reference material and discussion and practice of techniques before we start 

our own work.

11am – 12.30pm: Start our individual projects, I will be coming around to talk to you one to one.

12.30pm to 1.30pm: Lunch Break

1.30pm – 3.30pm: Continue with personal projects.

3.30pm: Group discussion about today.