The Art of Watercolour 3rd issue

The Art of Watercolour No. 3

Watercolour 3 r d ISSUE

THE ART OF

T H E A R T M A G A Z I N E F O R W AT E R C O L O U R I S T S

GUAN WEIXING

JOHN BORRACK

TECHNICAL GUIDE Your brushes in close-up

Handling atmosphere and texture

ALSO INSIDE PAUL MARGOCSY Painting Australian birds

ANDERS ZORN Sweden's master watercolourist

Jean-Claude Papeix Valériy Grachov Eva Tomkins David Paskett Jean-Louis Thibaut

EXPERT ADVICE: PAINTING WITH FIVE PRIMARY COLOURS - SOLUTIONS FOR OBTAINING CLEAN COLOUR MIXES

L 15673 - 3 - F: 7,50 € - RD

One of watercolour’s greatest contemporary portraitists

QUARTERLY - JUNE-AUGUST 2011 - 7,50 €

FR : 7,50 € - BE : 8,80 € - CH : 15 FS - LU : 8,80 €- ES : 9,50 € - IT : 9 €- GR : 8,90 €- PT CONT. : 8,80 € - GB : £8,20 - NL : 9 € - DE. : 9,50 € - AT : 9 € - MA : 97 MAD

SAMPLE

Contents IN THE NEWS 6 FOCUS The “Watercolour” exhibition at the Tate Britain, London.

10 INTERNATIONAL NEWS Watercolour events from all over the world.

14 READER’S LETTERS Our answers to your questions.

16 REVELATIONS Discover our selection of noteworthy artists.

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74 PRACTICAL GUIDE Your brushes in close-up.

Chris Krupinski

Hers are highly detailed and colourful still lifes with complex composition and contrasting lights and darks.

84 TECHNICAL ADVICE The three dimensions of colour.

90 WATERCOLOUR LESSONS Tips on how to improve your paintings.

98 WHAT’S ON A quick look at upcoming events.

99 IN THE NEXT ISSUE…

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John Borrack Landscape painting based on respect for the subject and the use of gouache and watercolour.

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Portfolio Guan Weixing’s masterpieces capture the soul of his models.

No. 3

June-August 2011

FEATURED ARTISTS

20 JOHN BORRACK Landscape Handling atmosphere and texture in watercolour.

26 DAVID PASKETT Still lifes and marines Working with tonal values.

34 ANDERS ZORN Art History One of Sweden’s greatest painters, with a museum dedicated to his work.

26 David Paskett The president of the British Royal Watercolour Society looks back over his forty-year career.

38 CHENG-KHEE CHEE Wet-in-wet technique Creating movement with watercolour.

44 CHRIS KRUPINSKI Realistic still lifes The objects that pose as her subjects tell their own story.

50 PORTFOLIO: GUAN WEIXING Capturing life in portraits Take a look at one of watercolours greatest contemporary portraitists.

60 JEAN-CLAUDE PAPEIX Flowers Inspired by the landscape and nature in the Limousin region in France.

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66 EVA TOMKINS Interieurs The splendeur of the past.

Ali Cavanaugh

76 ALI CAVANAUGH Portrait

She paints bold and modern pieces in a technique that is close to fresco.

92 PAUL MARGOCSY Wildlife painting

Figure painting on plaster fresques.

His one and only subject: Australian birds.

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INTERNATIONAL NEWS TEXT: STÉPHANIE PORTAL. PHOTOS: TATE BRITAIN. INSTALLATION SHOT: TATE PHOTOGRAPHY/SAM DRAKE

Watercolour

at the Tate

THE AMBITIOUS EXHIBITION ENTITLED WATERCOLOUR, WHICH CAN BE SEEN AT TATE BRITAIN THROUGHOUT THE SUMMER, IS A MUST-SEE FOR ALL WATERCOLOUR ENTHUSIASTS. FIVE ROOMS DEVOTED TO FIVE CENTURIES OF WATERCOLOUR, FROM THE FIRST TINTED MILITARY MAPS TO THE SERIES BY TRACEY EMIN, WITHOUT FORGETTING TURNER'S MASTERPIECES. THIS SHOW IS NOT TO BE MISSED.

How does one sum up the history of watercolour in 200 paintings? A daunting task which Tate Britain has tackled by choosing from its collection a rare selection of works rarely shown to the public. The exhibition is organised both thematically and chronologically: the first paintings shown are manuscripts from the Middle Ages illustrated in tempera.

For most people however, the true beginnings of watercolour date from the 16th century with painted maps on parchment and miniature portraits on either velum or ivory. During the course of the 17th century, watercolour became bolder, at a time when the exploration and numerous conquests of new countries needed to be charted and the wonders of new fauna and flora described.

Botanical illustrations by the likes of

Linnaeus and Parkinson combined scientific precision with the sheer beauty of the medium. During the following century, watercolour was the medium of choice for topographical surveys because it could be applied so easily. Travelling artists, who in their depictions of exotic and unknown lands combined authenticity and documentary information, also chose watercolours. Watercolour truly found its proponents with the likes of Girtin, Turner, Cotman and Palmer; artists who truly exploited the full potential of the medium’s wealth of chromatic hues.

It is this period, from the end of the 18th century until the middle of the following century, that has been dubbed the Golden age of watercolour.

This newfound boldness and liberty had different effects on the use of

The exhibition shows both watercolours by old masters (above) as well as contemporary artists (right).

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LIFE

AN ARTIST’S

A personal approach to landscape painting OVER THE COURSE OF HIS SIXTY-YEAR CAREER, THE AUSTRALIAN ARTIST HAS DEVELOPED A TECHNIQUE BASED ON RESPECT FOR HIS SUBJECT AND THE ADDITION OF GOUACHE TO HIS WATERCOLOURS.

M

Under the Escarpment Kakadu, Northern Territory.

Watercolour on Modigliani paper, 76 x 102 cm.

My commitment to watercolour is personal. Its intrinsic physical properties, combined with the rapidity and spontaneity that this medium requires, are ideally suited to my desire to say something about landscapes. I quite often venture into the world of oil painting and I find that the reciprocity of these two media aids in the construction of my approach to painting.

If a painter wants his/her work to truly become an expression of their interior world, he or she must be enthralled. In my case, this is manifest in a profound fondness for the natural and unchanging order of things, and studying my favourite

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masters both in oil painting and watercolour. A lifetime spent contemplating the countryside in which I live and the wide open spaces of Australia, where I often go to resource myself, have given me the opportunity to take up the challenge of finding a way to express the unique qualities of this continent’s landscapes, which are so different to those you find in Europe. Watercolour’s inherent characteristics, such as its liquidness and transparency, must be well understood. It is essential to know the capacities and the limits of one’s materials and chosen medium.

Haasts Bluff, Northern Territory.

Watercolour on Saunders Medium paper, 76 x 56 cm.

PORTFOLIO

I

Guan Weixing Art and Soul RARELY ARE WE GIVEN THE CHANCE TO SEE SUCH SUBTLE PORTRAITS WITH SUCH UNSURPASSED TECHNIQUE. BEYOND MERE TECHNICAL PROWESS, GUAN WEIXING’S WATERCOLOURS ARE CAPABLE OF SEIZING THE TRUE SOUL OF HIS MODELS.

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SMOKING OLD MAN 37 X 52 CM. 2008

ADVICE

TECHNICAL

THE THREE DIMENSIONS OF COLOUR THERE ARE MANY COLOUR THEORIES AROUND AND ARTISTS WILL CHOOSE WHICHEVER BEST SUITS THEIR NEEDS OR PERHAPS JUST SIMPLY WHAT THEY WERE TAUGHT DURING THEIR STUDIES. UNFORTUNATELY, MANY OF THESE THEORIES HAVE A MAJOR WEAKNESS: THEY DEAL WITH ONLY TWO OF THE THREE COLOUR DIMENSIONS, HUE AND SATURATION. FEW TAKE INTO ACCOUNT THE EFFECT VALUES HAVE ON THE APPEARANCE OF A COLOUR AND THEIR INSEPARABLE LINK TO COLOUR SATURATION. THIS IS WHY I FEEL IT IS WORTH TAKING A FEW MINUTES TO HAVE A LOOK AT THE MUNSELL COLOUR SYSTEM.

1.H UE ,

A COLOUR IN ITS PUREST STATE

IMPORTANT TERMS Hue: the name of a colour in its purest state in the colour spectrum.

Saturation or chroma: the degree of brightness and purity of a colour from vibrant to dull.

Value: the degree of intensity of a colour from dark to light.

Colour: the sum of the three colour dimensions above.

In image A, we have three different colours that have been graded from their darkest most opaque state down to the lightest of washes. It demonstrates each colour’s value range from the lightest value to the darkest value without adding another colour.

The area highlighted by a square indicates roughly the value where the colour is in its brightest/purest state. This region represents the hue: a colour in its purest state in the colour spectrum.

Image A

Image B

Note that the squares do not all fall in the same place along the three graded washes, they will however fall more or less always in between values 2 and 4 of any colour (see image B).

,

In watercolour hue is particularly important because each colour varies in temperature as its value changes from lighter to darker.

This shows us that the hue is dependent on tonal values.

Here are graded washes of Burnt Sienna, Cerulean Blue, and Winsor Violet.

Notice how the saturation of each colour is weaker in both the diluted wash and the opaque paint. The squares indicate the location of the hue, meaning the value of each colour where the saturation is the highest.

10

9

8

7

6

5

4

3

2

1

0

Value scale: 10 represents white, the lightest value and 0 represents the darkest value or black (in accordance with the CIELAB angle).

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HERE ARE TWO EXAMPLES: In image C, we can note a change in colour temperature as the value of the colour changes with the presence of more or less water.

Image C Example 1

Example 1: Transparent Yellow, a fairly neutral yellow when diluted, becomes very green as more pigment is added.

Example 2

Example 2: Winsor Blue (green shade) is a blue leaning towards green. When more pigment is added the blue turns a warm blue leaning towards red.

3. T ONAL

Practical tip: In watercolour, a colour changes temperature as its tonal values change. Balancing colours throughout a composition should be done not only with the same colour, but the same tonal value of that specific colour to ensure visual harmony.

Every colour has its own value range, some wider than others. Very few colours are able to obtain a dark value close to black (value 0) without the addition of a second colour.

In image A we can clearly see that neither Cerulean Blue nor Burnt Sienna can create a value as dark as Winsor Violet. It is important to understand this if you want to create dark transparent washes. For example, Winsor Violet, Ultramarine Blue or Perylene Violet can be used to darken warm colours and Phthalo Green (blue shade), Perylene Green and Ultramarine Blue are great for darkening cooler colours. These are all stable, transparent, non-granulating colours that not only offer large value

2. C OLOUR SATURATION , THE DEGREE OF BRIGHTNESS OF A COLOUR FROM VIBRANT TO DULL Every colour has its own saturation range, some wider than others. In image D you can see three different values of Phthalo Blue (Winsor Blue, green shade) and how different the colour appears depending on the tonal value used. We also see that when Image D

represented by a light or dark value the colour’s saturation decreases, showing us that the saturation of a colour is dependent on tonal value, and that a light or dark value are not equally saturated in colour.

VALUE , THE DEGREE OF INTENSITY OF A COLOUR FROM LIGHT TO DARK

Image E: above is a tube of Cerulean Blue and below is Winsor Violet.

Notice how dark the value of the violet is compared to that of the blue.

ranges, but when mixed will create rich clean colour, even in the darkest of values.

T HE M UNSELL C OLOUR S YSTEM In my opinion one of the better colour theories is the Munsell colour System, created in 1905 by American artist Albert Henry Munsell. This system is one of the few to take the three colour dimensions into consideration: hue, saturation and value.

Partially for this reason the Munsell system has become today’s preferred colour model for various industries internationally. There were a few other colour theories preceding Munsell’s system that also included the three colour dimensions, but it is the system’s ability to be able to gauge the effects of the three different elements independently that allows it to stand strong in the

PRACTICAL TIPS: , If you wish to obtain dark values use transparent colours that appear almost black in their opaque state. , Do not confuse ‘opacity’ with ‘dark values’. You will never be able to obtain a dark value using Cobalt Blue, even if you empty the entire tube onto your sheet! , A simple way of seeing if a particular colour is good for creating darks is simply by unscrewing the cap and looking at the colour in the tube, if it appears almost black it will work.

Note: a colour is always brighter when a value of between 2 and 4 is used. See images A and B.

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