Alla Prima Oil Study

I setup a temporary studio at home this week to do a practice oil study piece for a workshop I was teaching about stormy seascapes, using alla prima techniques.

Alla prima means to paint 'first time' or 'in one go'. If you are using oil paints this will require a fair amount of painting wet into wet. This technique is very well suited to plein air work where you are working quickly to record a scene - in one go.

The alla prima oil study in the video, is on canvas measuring 16" x 10" and is of high tide with a stormy sea at Porthleven Cornwall.

The colors used were:
Titanium White, Cadmium Yellow, Lemon Yellow, Cadmium Orange, Naples Yellow, Raw Umber, Violet, Ultramarine Blue, Cobalt Blue, Manganese Blue and Ivory Black.
I began by mixing turpentine with the paint. As the painting progressed I used little to no turps with the paint.

Thanks for watching - all the best - Andrew

[michelfrance]

I really like your style and your mastery of the subject. The correctness of the values, the subtlety and the richness of the tones are interesting. Thank you also for the quality of the shooting and the editing which are excellent.

[AHMEDKHALED-jcbj]

This painting is very very beautiful international work
Congratulations artist ❤

[veronicabelly]

Hi Andrew.... ☺️☺️☺️☺️Wonderfuuuul... Palette amazing, now I must go on.... BUT, I want to watch this opera with more attention🧐because it's really fantastic!!!! Have a good week Mr Wonder☺️😁🙋‍♀️

[christianday]

A very beautiful seascape. Rocks and surf are gorgeous. You can feel the motion and hear the sea. I think the most difficult area is the shining water on the right side of the painting. It works. Successful painting, but the shining light is, to me, not as interesting as the rocks and surf. I liked the video very much. Thank you.

[davidcraigferguson]

Loving the movement in the water…nice amp as well🎸!

[maria-doloresvazquez-abad]

Thank you Andrew; your explanation of starting establishing the transparent darks and maintaining the lightest area light from the start was very clear and watching the process was interesting. Thank you for filming this, especially knowing you were doing this holding the phone on your left hand to film the process! Let's hope we can travel in 2022 and restart some workshop attendance in person. Loli (Boston, USA)

[Paul-suqh]

🤔mm, Alla Prima, always difficult to get right when making those earlier marks which then begin to look a bit muddy at the start.
However, your mastery of this process made short work of this part of the process, and the scene soon begun to look less like an abstract work, and more like the seascape you were skillfully capturing with each stroke of colour you laid down on the canvas.
It was interesting to watch as you set out to create that greater sense of depth and definition of the subject.
In fact, It was really wonderful to watch you build the layers of paint step by step, and take it to its final stage of completion Andrew.
Once again, a Thoroughly enjoyable video and tuition.🤗

[jenniek]

That was fantastic as usual. At one point I felt sure I could hear the rush of the waves! Very interesting that you put all those colours in the foreground and the dark areas. Is that from memory and experience as the camera tends to render most darker areas ‘camera black’ as my art tutor calls it? It’s a pit fall for me as I paint almost entirely from photographs. Thank you for a lovely video. I was thinking about coming to that workshop but still feel a bit Covid anxious so shall wait till the spring and hope you’re still doing them!