Liz Moon M.A. S.W.A.

My time at Oxford studying Engineering directly influenced my method of painting. I am of the generation of engineers who worked with fine draughting pens, tracing paper, blue and sepia prints. . .( as well as slide rules for calculation.) These are the tools I used while making pictures, allowing me to draw on my imagination and memory to create images of people, places and movement. . . these tools, and the experience of printing etchings.

In San Francisco, while working on pipe construction, (Pacific Pipe Company), I studied etching at the San Francisco Art Institute. I enjoyed the practical side of printing. . . . . handling metal plates and large printing presses!

I also enjoyed all the stages for printing an image.

Within the process of etching, (where the metal plate is eaten into by acid), there are two main ways to make marks. One is by scratching very fine lines in a thin wax acid-protective coating, before it is dipped into the acid. The other is to add tone over different areas. This is a very different process altogether. . .involving powdered resin and straw hat varnish !

I still use these steps of thinking in the work I do now.

Step 1. Sorting out the lines.

a) Sketches of people, ideas, movement.

• The sketches from life are very rough, looking for the different positions of a person during their activity.
• For imagined or memory images of figures, I draw very quickly on large sheets of paper. Here large bold strokes accentuate the movement.
• If I see or imagine the figures in a particular space, I will return and sketch the space.

b) Photocopied sketches collaged together to build the image.

• Here I draw into the copies of the sketches of people, sorting out proportions and finding the best lines to use.
• By enlarging or reducing figures in the copier, I can use their size to create depth in a picture, without losing the original liveliness of the sketch.
• The figures are then placed into the real or imagined space, already sketched and copied.  Here I can bend the space around the figures, making buildings lean and walls enclose. . . a rebellion from the exact horizontals and verticals of Engineering drawing.

c) Tracing of the collage.

• Tracing helps sort out the sketchy lines, firming up the image. On the reverse of the tracing paper I put in the “swish” lines. Lines inherited from earlier abstract horizon work, to lead the eye into the picture.

d) Final tracing onto watercolour paper.

• Using a light table, the linear image is traced onto thick watercolour paper using my old Engineering pen and brown ink.

Step 2. Area colours and tones.

a) Colour plan.

• Each painting has its own colour world. The colour plan is worked out on a smaller photocopy of the image, using pencil crayons. It gives a chance to see the patterns each colour and tone make within the whole.

b)  Painting with Acrylic wash.

• When traced on and dampened, the watercolour paper is stretched onto white board and allowed to dry. Using the colour plan as a guide, the image is then painted quickly, allowing gaps around each area of colour.
• Since Acrylic wash dries like a skin, it can be painted over with a darker wash without losing any detail. This allows for “balancing up” as the painting is finished.

I have shown how this works in the page on “Building a Picture”