Beggs – Exercise: light, shade, shapes and tone

Arriving at Montsalvat for my first lesson, I find myself immersed in the artiness of the place: the ghosts of artists past, the thick layers of paint on the easels, the ancient wooden steps up through wattle and daub walls opening out into a wide loft just under the roofline. There is a wide selection of bric-a-brac and plaster molds ready to consider and represent on my too-white pristine canvas panel.

My teacher, Angela Abbott – with links back to Max Meldrum it seems to me – sets up this scene, which looked possible until she opened the book’s cover and inserted another lemon there. There are three lemons at various angles, and the one lime.

The objects were to be represented with light and shade: no lines, no sketching, and all measurements done by a finger along a paintbrush handle with one eye closed. Particular attention to distances, all being measured from the lime near the book’s spine. Then shapes, angles, light and dark, with edges only appearing as the background went around them.