DENNIS HILL 'GETS LOST' PAINTING

"Throw away your pencil says Dennis Hill. He only uses one to sketch the angles of the face in a portrait. Using loose transparent washes, he likes simple shapes with some negative painting and is not afraid to introduce an abstract element. The results are stylish and timeless. Dennis paints freely and abandons himself to the painting process. Like many of us, he 'gets lost' in it.

His preferred support is stretched 90lb Saunders Waterford for the smoother surface. His favourite brush is a no. 10 filbert oxhair and they are supported with a squirrel mop and a nylon rigger. He uses transparent colours: burnt sienna, raw sienna, ultramarine, permanent rose, alizarin crimson, aureolin, cadmium lemon, cadmium orange, cerulean blue, winsor blue and winsor violet.

Dennis used flowers for our demonstration and then added a cottage shape on the right-hand side. He enjoys painting cottages and dry stone walls in the Purbeck hills.  

Dennis's Tips:

• Apply the colour and leave it. He never wipes preferring to lighten with clean water and a brush.
• Don't touch an almost-dry wash
• Use the best quality paints
• Place additional colour to the base of a shape
• Mix, don't buy, greens - for example: cadmium orange and ultramarine

 

Dennis brough portraits and other examples of his work to show us.