The task here is to paint one of the collections using a suggested medium, or acrylics/watercolours/ink on A1 watercolour paper or lining paper. I don’t have any watercolour paper A1 sized and I’ve never heard of lining paper so I’m sure I don’t have that. What I do have is old rolls of Christmas wrapping paper and so I’ve clipped a strip of suitable size to a drawing board. I’ve chosen the birds again because they hardly had a fair outing that first time.

In the past, my line paintings have never quite been Schiele-like because shorter, fatter brushes are easier for me to manipulate. I have given it an initial go using Payne’s grey just making some of the shapes, but then I have added colour in short strokes that may or may not be lines depending on your interpretation of the term. There is certainly no blending.

The second painting is my preference although I know I’m going to ‘finish’ it outside the exercise. I am calling the brush strokes lines because they mark out shapes, they don’t blend, and there is no tonal work. I would help greatly to have an idea beyond the generic learning outcomes of the rationale for the choices in these exercises of methods, materials, and content. The scale for this one suits me much better though.

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Post hoc painting. I have used T. white on the background, scratching grooves into it with a Tangleteaser hair brush to make textured lines that reflect the graph paper print of the back of this wrapping paper. I dragged the brush across the birds and picked up some of the blue/green while depositing some white there. Finally, I painted the birds with rubbing alcohol, let that evaporate a little, then pulled some of the paint off with a flannel.

This is probably some way from the brief but it satisfies me and I think it demonstrates the spirit of this module as regards exploratory approaches to painting.