![]()
1 The Watercolour Medium
Many artists feel a natural attraction to and affinity for watercolour and I think this especially applies to landscape painters. With its immediacy, fluidity and, in many respects, versatility, watercolour is the ideal medium for capturing the transient effects of light and mood in the landscape as well as all that this implies in terms of subtle colouring and sensitive handling. Yet, while landscape remains the most popular genre for watercolour, there is also much potential for exciting work with other subject matter. For example, in addition to my marine and landscape subjects, I enjoy painting people, interiors and buildings in watercolour.
Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of watercolour is the fact that although everyone accepts that it is intensely difficult to use, it is nevertheless an extremely popular medium. I know from my own experience, which covers more than forty years, that watercolour can be one of the most frustrating ways of being creative known to mankind. But the challenge is part of the attraction, and as we gain in confidence and techniques, and are able to steel ourselves to be positive and expressive, then the results can be truly rewarding. The challenge I most relish is the contre-jour effect that can be found during the early morning and later afternoon on a bright, sunny day when there are strong contrasts of light and shadows. Success in capturing that fleeting effect never fails to create a real buzz!
The Ice-cream Seller, New York
39 × 28.5cm (15¼ × 11¼in)
Scope and characteristics
The most obvious characteristic of watercolour is that it is a very fluid medium, and consequently the principal painting technique relies on applying a succession of washes. Used with restraint, and especially when applied to white paper, these washes of colour will create immensely sensitive luminous and translucent effects which, for most artists, are further qualities that are synonymous with the medium. A limited use of colour and technique usually works best, so that the result is not overstated or overworked. Invariably paintings lose their vitality and impact if the colour is laboured to such an extent that it becomes ‘muddy’ and opaque.
This is not to say that there is only one method of painting with watercolour, this being the traditional wash-over-wash approach in which the highlights are left as white paper. Especially during the past fifty years, there are also artists who have decided that working exclusively with very fluid washes, as well as being extraordinarily difficult and inevitably involving an element of chance, places too much of a constraint on technique and effects. They argue that by adding body colour (watercolour mixed with gouache or acrylic) they can gain more control over the work and broaden the scope of the medium. Additionally, of course, watercolour can be combined with many other painting media, such as pastel, water-soluble pencils or pen and ink, in a mixed-media approach.
Hall Cross, Doncaster, Yorkshire
28 × 33cm (11 × 13in)
In this painting of a street in my home town, the real subject is the light. I liked the blue-and-gold feel of this autumnal afternoon and the way that little accents of light enlivened a scene that was mostly in shadow.
A Side Street in Alcudia, Mallorca
39 × 28.5cm (15¼ × 11¼in)
Don’t be afraid to make use of the natural surface colour of the paper for the whites and highlights in a subject. For example, in this painting there is only the slightest hint of colour on the building in the centre – much of the paper has been left white.
Morning, Sun Rising, Staithes, Yorkshire
39 × 57cm (15¼ × 22½in)
Light is a quality that always interests me. As here, with the contrast between the warm light in the upper parts of the subject and the cooler, reflected light in the beck, watercolour can be a wonderfully sensitive medium for capturing a fleeting mood or an atmospheric effect.
The use of body colour in watercolour painting has always been controversial. Purists believe that watercolour should be fluid, spontaneous and transparent, while the not-so-purists will argue that essentially there is too much dependence on the ‘happy accident’, so why not add body colour to give greater reliability and creativity. Obviously this has to be a matter for each artist to decide.
For my own part, with the advantage of many years’ experience, I hope that I can handle the medium well enough to express my ideas in a first ‘hit’. I value those special qualities of fluidity and translucency that only watercolour can offer. My use of body colour (I actually use white acrylic paint with perhaps a touch of lemon yellow) is confined to adding just a small amount to soften the edges of those areas where I have applied masking fluid. It helps enhance the sense of light and the glowing effect, I think. But that’s as far as I take it.
Some artists dislike the constraints of having to consider and reserve the whites and highlights right at the beginning of a painting and so they use body colour as a means of adding the most intense light passages at a much later stage. This creates opaque, dense areas of light rather than translucent light and in my view seldom looks entirely successful or compatible in relation to the rest of the painting. In fact, watercolour is extremely versatile in its own right and I have never felt it necessary to introduce other media to create the effects that I wanted.
Bend in the River Fowey, Cornwall
28.5 × 39cm (11¼ × 15¼in)
This was an instance when I came across an exciting subject but, without any materials with me, I could not work on a painting straight away. However, I was so impressed with the scene that I decided to return at the same time the next evening with my painting gear.
A watercolour can be a simple line and wash painting or, contrastingly, can be developed with a variety of methods into an immensely detailed result. My range of techniques is discussed and illustrated later in this section, here. Morning, Sun Rising, Staithes and Light on the River, Henley are good examples of the qualities that I like to develop in my paintings.
Note how the medium perfectly suits the depiction of particular qualities of light and how a restrained palette (choice of colours) often works best. The approach that I use for a certain painting depends on the subject matter and the circumstances. For example, outside, with a contre-jour subject and consequently a limited amount of time, I normally paint ‘fast and loose’. On other occasions I choose what I call ‘the middle way’, in which I can work on areas separately but then maybe unify the painting with an overall wash. Or, alternatively, for a complex subject when long-term concentration is possible, I adopt a much more considered approach. For every painting I usually start with a big, wet-into-wet general wash to create a ghost effect for the overall image. These methods are discussed in detail in Working Methods.
Light on the River, Henley
39 × 28.5cm (15¼ × 11¼in)
Careful observation, sketches and photographs are the essential forms of reference for the paintings of Henley Regatta, held on the Thames, that I regularly exhibit each year.
Cobles on the Beck
39 × 57cm (15¼ × 22½in)
With the tide and light gradually changing, this type of subject demands a fast-and-loose approach using bold washes combined with sound drawing.
Pantile Rooftops, West Cliff, Whitby, Yorkshire
39 × 48cm (15¼ × 19in)
While I normally work on a standard-size sheet of paper stretched on a board, there are occasions when the subject demands a slightly different shape, as here.
History and Context
Another attraction of watercolour is its sense of history; the fact that there are numerous fine artists and watercolour paintings that we can study and be excited and inspired by. Particularly in Britain, there is a long tradition of watercolour painting and artists continue to respect and build on this. My own motivation and inspiration has come from the great painters of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, notably those of the Staithes Group and the Newlyn School.
There can be immense value in looking at paintings by other artists and I suppose there are very few watercolourists who have not been influenced by something they have admired in another painter’s work. However, I do think it is important to be true to yourself – to try to develop your own way of expressing ideas. It is fine to pluck the odd idea from here and there but, if you rely on more than this, you run the risk of simply becoming a clone of someone ...
