Tom Lynch Demo – Notes by M. Buhl and P. Tift
Tom Lynch gave a wonderful demo to CMW on Monday, November 8, 2021
He was very generous in making a video recording of his painting demo which is available for 2 weeks on YouTube. See information below.
Tom begins by explaining that his current style of painting is not about realism and detail. He says change the way you think about your painting while the brush is in your hand. He says be an entertainer by using a variety of bright colors and a loose look to engage the viewer.
He laid out his plan for the painting, identifying where the darks and lights would be in the mountain scene he would paint. Tom creates his value sketch using a Sketch and Wash pencil which is activated and fades with water so that he can see where his lights and darks should be. Tom uses Fabriano extra white paper 300# cold press and can’t stress enough about leaving the whites of the paper show through. He likes this paper because he uses a lot of water and it doesn’t absorb too fast in this paper. His preference for paints is the Sennelier brand which he uses exclusively. Sennelier paint is not staining and can be lifted even the Phthalo blues and greens. Tom also mixes most of his palette colors separately in spray bottles to add a highlight of color to his paintings. He uses 1 ½ inch of paint from large tubes and adds 1 inch of water in a small spray bottle. There are 3 colors he does not have on his palette – they are Paynes Gray, Neutral Tint and Lamp Black. In general, he uses one basic color and 2 accents in his paintings. This ensures harmony and repetition in his paintings which is appealing.
In beginning the painting, he generously applies paint into the mountains and then lays in other colors. The sky is left for last so that it can unify and harmonize the painting. Tom leaves about 20% of the white in the painting and he exaggerates the rest of the colors. Whites tend to take the viewer out of the painting so that near the end of the painting Tom will spray color around the edge of the paper to assure that the painting is held together. It also provides the opportunity for a color shift to determine if a cool temperature or warm temperature will work best in the painting. Below is the painting Tom completed during the demo.
Tom also gave out these two references–one about color mixing and the other about checklist for success.
The demo was 1 hour 42 minutes in length.
Insert this link into your browser to view the demo sometime up until approximately November 20th:
After that time, you can get a sense of Tom’s style by watching this You tube video about painting mountains by Tom. There are also other demos by Tom on you tube if you want to watch those.