Art Creation with Susan Dunster

A lovely crisp winter's day is perfect for coming inside The Little Gallery to enjoy a demonstration by local artist Susan Dunster. As well as enjoying some wine and nibbles, our guests also enjoyed watching Susan built a beautiful piece of art using collage techniques and paint. She commences by setting up a still life study to work from to help her capture the light and shapes, which can be seen in the finished work.

Susan delights in working with collage and found materials and as she works her way through the process of creating her still-life painting, she tells us that this way of using shapes and colours helps to keep her vision free, loose and natural and it is intriguing and interesting in it's simplicity.

The shape, space, lights and darks are important as she maps out her subject on the canvas using a water colour pencil which will eventually merge with the water based paint (Flashe, an opaque medium which creates solid but intriguing layers). This mapping out part of the process also allows her to keep perspective and proportions and ensure that the finished product is recognisable

She continues to build up the work whilst always keeping in mind the importance of line and movement and by adding an expressive line she is able to accentuate the delightful coffee pot and ensure that it remains a feature of the finished piece of art.

She has now prepared the work to progress towards selecting collage related material such as textured collected paper, painted paper she has prepared herself (she finds by using thin rather than thick papers easier to work with as it adheres better to the canvas that she is shown using here).

Colour becomes important as she wants to merge the collage with the existing tones and keep the work fresh and ensuring the painting is not ‘over-worked’ - keep the loose and natural feeling that she set out to achieve at the beginning. This is the most important element to Susan as she seeks that lasting spontaneity which her work is known for.

 

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