Karen Donnelly's Painterly Cabinet

For Karen's first project as a Painter in Residence, she used my paint, Chalk Paint®, to paint a sophisticated, tonal landscape on to the cupboard doors of a small cabinet.

Karen started by painting the whole piece in Old Ochre, a faded darkened cream colour, to give her canvas a neutral base, and she chose a muted, limited palette of Old White, Coco and Graphite to create her tonal landscape. For those of you wondering what I mean by painting a tonal landscape, I will explain... The way that we can see one object from the one next to it or behind it is largely due to tonal differences between them. A dark object will stand out clearly against a light one. There can also be colour differences, but tone is one of the most important factors. The easiest way to see tone, and to filter out unwanted details is to squint while you are looking at the object – this cuts out colours and helps you to see black, greys and whites. A tonal painting focuses on these shapes of tones to create an image.

Karen continued the theme inside the cabinet by painting it in Graphite and Coco, and finished the piece in Annie Sloan Soft Clear Wax.

What do you think? Have you ever used Chalk Paint® to paint tonely?

Yours, Annie

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