This exercise not only involved using a worm’s eye view but it also involved using circles. I asked the classes to draw the smallest circle they could and to then draw a circle around that circle and to keep drawing subsequent circles until there was no more space on their paper to do so. Of course the smallest circle anybody can draw is a dot. Dots work very well when painting a crowd scene, as the one in the background of this stadium. The large circle ball shape in the foreground can be drawn freehand but of course the easiest way to draw a perfect circle is to use a template etc. I drew my circle freehand for this painting.  

The amount of detail in this painting means that it does take some time to complete. In the background – there are lots of lines visible in the roof of the stadium, lights, people and colour. When using dot or stipple think about using either complimentary (colours that make each other look bright next to each other) or analogous (colours that look almost similar next to each other) colours. I used a combination of both. The players form a nice composition, and leaving the paper “white” makes the reds and blues of the other parts of their kit look nice and bright in colour.  

The net in the foreground, I drew this in but ignored it when I was painting: do not try and “paint around it”. I painted it in last as I was using mixed media, including graphite, watercolours, acrylic and pen. Grass is always a challenge as you just do not want a green mass on your paper. I put an initial wash of green – I always mix my own green colours – and overlaid that with a stronger wash of green. I let that soak slightly into the paper and then used a dry fan brush, upward brush stroke to suggest grass. The longer you make the brushstroke, the longer the grass. 

I painted in the white lining on the grass with acrylic, when the rest of the painting was 100% dry.