Cat Croxford Demo

Friday 4th July 2024

Cat Croxford is a landscape artist based in Berkshire and Buckinghamshire. She takes her inspiration from the Savernack Forest and other local woodlands. She usually paints in acrylic and always on a black background. She paints with distinctive broken brushstrokes and this technique means that she will not finish a painting during the course of a two hour demonstration. The large painting below probably took about 8 days painting for 4 – 6 hours a day.

The scene she is going to demonstrate she had already sketched out using a white pastel pencil on a pre-prepared canvas painted with Amsterdam Black paint. She has a colour reference photograph which she has chosen because she likes the path that creates a sense of space and leads into the painting. and there is a large ‘hero’ tree that will help to develop the composition.

Many artists painting in acrylic start with mid-tones but Cat likes to start with no light. She loves to layer up. She does not premix her colours.  She always starts with the trees to establish the ‘bones’ of the painting. The temptation would be to paint the sky first but she wants the trees to go into the black background. She paints at a distance making marks rather than painting in detail. She is painting more than a photograph.

She begins painting the trunk of the ‘hero’ tree with transparent iron oxide blue and brown. She does not premix her colours. She goes back to her palette frequently.  Tonight the heat is making the paint quite sticky so she did use a little water to clean her brush but she usually cleans it on her trousers as she adds, applies and manipulates the paint.

Cat uses only one type of brush. It is a Silver 14mm wide brush which she gets from Jackson’s. The brush tends to get worn down so she goes through them quickly but she has found she can recycle them by giving these to her students to try them out. She buys in bulk which mounts up @£16 per brush.

Cat likes to paint with fluid, soft body acrylics from Liquitex and Golden. These may be a bit pricey but a little paint goes a long way. When it comes to painting the tree foliage Cat does not mix her own green, she likes to use Jenkin’s Green & Permanent Green Deep. She uses lots of Hansa Yellow Opaque to lighten together with Golden Vat Orange and Vivid Red Orange. She likes Cobalt Blue for the sky. Cat does the sky and foliage at the same time as she aims to create a bit of a blur initially. 

She wants to have no edges but to have all the colours blend.  She looks at her reference to determine how and where to apply her colours.  She thinks in terms of a rough map.  She often gets her students to cover their reference photo with tracing paper and to then draw around the major shapes to ensure they see in terms of shape rather than detail.

She has started by putting in a little sky, blue & white under the foliage.  Then she adds yellow and orange working the same area.  She wants to avoid hard edges but the paint is drying quickly. She holds the brush as far from ferrule as possible to keep nice and loose. She adds permanent Green Deep then pops a little sky over the foliage. She carefully delineates her branches by changing her brush shape to draw the line.    She leaves space to allude to the branch which she might paint in later or even leave black.

After the break Cat goes on to develop the blurry element. She does not usually paint the whole with one layer before starting on a second layer.  Instead she works up different areas.  The second layer tends to bring focus and balance. This is when she makes colour adjustments. She starts to develop the sky cutting in with the brighter pops of the blue and white. While painting in amongst the leaves she is aware of the negative space.

While painting foliage you are creating the illusion of layers. She uses the brush to vary the shape of her marks. You must be careful that the overall shape of the marks is random and cannot be interpreted as a face or an animal. 

Returning to the corner she is going to add more greens in the orange area which looks a bit too orange to her mind.  By adding a few marks she can send the sky back.  She wants it to look as if this layer is emerging from the first one. Cat was asked what colour she was going to paint the path and so she turned to that area of the painting and added some new colours to her palette.

Cat uses a colour called Muted Grey by Liquitex which is a kind of dirty purple. Any colour called ‘muted’ will be a mix and it is possible to see which colours have been mixed by looking on the bottle.  By adding a bit of white or orange Cat will ramp up the grey/purple. Another colour that is good for shadows is Alizarin.   As the path is in the foreground Cat will tend to be a bit more precise. This close up of the area shows the variety of colour being used.

During the course of the evening Cat talked about the experience of being on  Sky Arts Landscape Artist of the Year 2024 as a heat contestant.  She admitted it was very stressful but her advice was to “definitely do it!” She was surprised when she discovered she was going to be painting Donnottar Castle in Aberdeen. A castle and no trees. Not ideal for her.

Cat exhibits regularly at Affordable Art Fairs in Hampstead and Battersea. For more information see her video on Youtube or visit her website: https://www.catcroxford.com

Frimley & Camberley Society of Arts counts itself very fortunate to have had Cat Croxford for this demonstration especially as she is going to be out of the country for sometime soon.

Write up and photographs by Carole Head