The Art of Watercolour No. 6
Watercolour
6 th I S S U E
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
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SECRETS REVEALED
SAMPLE
ATANAS MATSOUREFF
BECOME AN EXPERT
Figure painting: Strength in subtlety
at balancing colours and values
COVER STORIES WANG CHANGSHOU LÉON BONVIN The forgotten master
Himalayan portraits: Accentuating expressions
DENNY BOND How to obtain a powerful page layout
Huang Tieshan Piet Lap Martin Lutz David Walker Denis Pannett
SKETCHBOOK UNBOUND: handmade, publishing, website, Ipad, youtube…
L 15673 - 6 - F: 7,50 € - RD
SPECIAL EVENT 200TH EXHIBITION ROYAL INSTITUTE OF PAINTERS IN WATER COLOURS
QUARTERLY - MARCH / MAY 2012 - 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
CREATE YOUR OWN MASTERPIECE
Contents IN THE NEWS 6 FOCUS The Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours celebrates its 200th London exhibition.
8 INTERNATIONAL NEWS Watercolour events from all over the world.
11 READERS’ LETTERS Our answers to your questions.
14 REVELATIONS Discover our selection of noteworthy artists.
24 ATANAS MATSOUREFF
Perfectly portraying textures and bodies.
34 Piet Lap An experienced landscape and flower artist talks about his relation to his medium and his choices as a painter.
46 ART HISTORY Léon Bonvin, an unknown genius of the mid-19th century Realist movement.
84 TECHNICAL ADVICE 7 ways to ensure your watercolour makes an excellent first impression.
90 WATERCOLOUR LESSON Tips on how to improve your paintings.
92 PRACTICAL GUIDE How to paint a seaside landscape with Denis Pannett.
98 WHAT’S ON Exhibitions, shows and fairs around the world.
99 IN THE NEXT ISSUE… Printed in France -17, avenue du Cerisier Noir 86530 Naintré – France Tel.: Editorial Office: +33 5 49 90 37 64 - Fax Editorial Office: +33 5 49 90 09 25 E-mail: editorial@artofwatercolour.com - EDITORIAL STAFF Editor-In-Chief: Jean-Philippe Moine Deputy Editor-In-Chief: Laurent Benoist - Editorial assistant: Manuella Pineau - Chief subeditor: Élodie Blain - Sub-editor: Marie-Pierre Lévêque - Art Director: Janine Gallizia - Graphic designer: Audrey Salé - Graphic design team: Nadine Tillet, Hervé Magnin - Translation and adaptation: Simon Thurston - Scanner Operator: Franck Sellier - Manager: Jean-Paul Cyr ADVERTISING Tel.: (00 33) 5 49 90 09 19 - Fax: (00 33) 5 49 90 08 29 E-mail: advertising@artofwatercolour.com - SALES, MARKETING AND DISTRIBUTION Frédérik Favier Tel.: (00 33) 5 49 90 09 19 - Distribution France: MLP - MANAGEMENT Financial Director: Fabien Richard - Export: Export Press contact@kdpresse.com +33 142 46 02 20 THE ART OF WATERCOLOUR Published by DIVERTI Éditions S.A.R.L. with a capital of 15,000 € 490 317 369 RCS Poitiers 17, avenue du Cerisier Noir 86530 Naintré, France - Main Shareholders: CAPELITIS Group and CAP DEVELOPPEMENT - Photo-engraving: DIVERTI ÉDITIONS - Printers: MEGATOP, 86530 Naintré, France - Sending text or photos implies the author’s agreement for publication free of copyright and supposes that the author has in his/her possession any authorisation necessary to publication. - All rights reserved for documents and texts published in The Art of Watercolour. Any reproduction of articles published in The Art of Watercolour, either in part or whole, is strictly forbidden without the express written agreement of Diverti Éditions, in compliance with the French law on literary and artistic property of March 11th 1957. Articles and photos, which are not retained for publication, shall not be returned. The editorial staff shall not be liable or responsible for the content of texts, nor for illustrations and photos that they receive. - Publication registration: 0316 K 90760 - ISSN: 2114-3498 - Legal deposit on date of release - Quarterly – No. 6 – March-May 2012.
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Denny Bond
A great use of liquid watercolour and a totally unpredictable choice of subject matter.
No.6 March-May 2012 FEATURED ARTISTS
18 HUANG TIESHAN Landscapes and still lifes Between realism and romanticism, he devotes himself to the depiction of a Chinese way of life.
24 ATANAS MATSOUREFF Nudes and objects From simple, everyday subjects, he paints complex and powerful paintings with great suggestive power.
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Huang Tieshan
This Chinese master has played a major role in popularising watercolour in his country.
34 PIET LAP Flowers A watercolourist shares his views on his sources of inspiration, choice of subject and aversion to masking fluid.
38 DAVID WALKER Genre scenes
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Portfolio
Wang Changshou’s Himalayan portraits bear the mark of time’s passing.
His architectural views are characterised by their rigorous draughtsmanship and remarkable fluidity.
50 PORTFOLIO: WANG CHANGSHOU Portraits In his ‘Tibet expressions’ series, the Chinese painter displays an incredible gallery of emotions and moods.
58 DENNY BOND Objects How close attention to detail in applying colours and values creates a perfect sense of reality.
66 FOCUS ON… Sketchbook art Through seven artists, discover today’s trends from home-made sketchbooks to Youtube.
76 MARTIN LUTZ Figures and landscapes This German artist is a keen teacher: he explains to us the role colours play in his watercolours.
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ARTIST THE
MEET
On the Way Back Home in Twilight. 82 x 112 cm.
Huang Tieshan HUANG TIESHAN HAS BEEN A PAINTER FOR ALMOST SIXTY YEARS WITH A CAREER THAT HAS RUN PARALLEL TO THE REMARKABLE DEVELOPMENT OF WATERCOLOUR IN CHINA. HE HAS PLAYED A MAJOR ROLE IN POPULARISING THE MEDIUM, WITH EMBLEMATIC LANDSCAPES, WHICH ARE TRULY PART OF CHINESE HERITAGE, AND WORKS INCLUDED IN THE COLLECTION OF THE NATIONAL ART MUSEUM OF CHINA. THIS ARTIST DESERVES TO BE KNOWN IN THE WEST, HENCE OUR INTEREST…
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KEY DATES 1939 Born in Shanmen, in Hunan province. 1953 At the age of 14, he entered the Hunan School of Arts where he studied under Master Wang Zhengde. 1959 Graduated from Hubei College of Fine Arts, majoring in watercolour. This marked the beginning of his professional career. 2000 Exhibition at the National Art Museum of China, where some of his works already figure in the permanent collection. 2004 Exhibition at the Chinese Fine Arts museum which met with universal acclaim. 2010 Organiser and jury member of the first Zhujiajiao International Biennial. Huang Tieshan is a council member of the China Artist’s Association, Chairman of the Watercolour Committee and Vice–Chairman of the Chinese Federation of Art and Literature, Hunan province. He has published numerous books including: ‘A Selection of Huang Tieshan’s Watercolours.’
Sunrise on a Lake. 68 x 78 cm.
H
Huang Tieshan started at the Hunan School of Arts in 1953 at the age of 14, and discovered watercolour. Out of this first encounter grew a passion that would never leave him. Today, some sixty years later, the artist fondly remembers this moment and talks about it like meeting the love of his life, a faithful companion that has stood by his side throughout his life, a life devoted to art. If for ten or more years, observers have been talking about the golden age of Chinese watercolour, Huang Tieshan will remain one of the painters who has made his stamp on the history of watercolour in China; a 20th century Paul Sandby.
His paintings harmoniously combine an artistic vision that remains in touch with watercolour’s roots in 18th century England and his own personal inspiration that is anchored in the specific characteristics of Chinese culture. The influence of Wang Zhengde, his first teacher, is quite obvious… Did his teaching not insist on the rigorous application of the rules first laid down by those great names of English watercolour? And yet Huang Tieshan’s paintings are quintessentially Chinese: misty mountains and green meadows, cormorant fishermen on a river lazily meandering its way between a typical landscape of karst hills, which for westerners will always W ATERCOLOUR N O .6 / M ARCH -M AY 2012
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F E AT U R E D A R T I S T
Atanas
“I wish my paintings closer to the
Nude. 2005. 66 x 74.5 cm.
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Matsoureff
to bring me essence of things”
A MASTER OF REALIST WATERCOLOUR PAINTING, BULGARIAN ARTIST ATANAS MATSOUREFF SHOWS A GREAT INTEREST IN THE DEPICTION OF TEXTURES AS WELL AS A GREAT RESPECT FOR HIS MODELS. FROM SIMPLE, EVERYDAY SUBJECTS, HE PAINTS COMPLEX AND POWERFUL PAINTINGS WITH GREAT SUGGESTIVE POWER. 25
OF VIEW
POINT
Piet Lap AFTER FORTY YEARS’ LOYAL SERVICE TO WATERCOLOUR, PIET LAP HAS BECOME AN EXPERIENCED ARTIST, ALTHOUGH HE HUMBLY ADMITS THAT WATERCOLOUR IS A MEDIUM THAT YOU CAN NEVER COMPLETELY MASTER. LIGHT AND WATER PRESIDED OVER OUR MEETING WITH THIS AMAZING ARTIST.
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Opposite
Still Life 2. 76 x 58 cm.
THE CHOICE OF SUBJECT The attractiveness of the subject is of great importance to me. Still lifes must be an invitation to paint, they should make you hungry, so to speak. In order to do that the whole setting must be more than the addition of its components. ‘Pots and pans’ as such have no specific importance. My studio looks out onto a cottage garden, which is the exclusive domain of my wife. She is the expert on flowers. I personally have no more than an average affection for flowers and even less when they are captive in a vase in my studio. I am anything but a botanical painter. I often use white chrysanthemums which I have to buy because my wife doesn’t grow them. Why chrysanthemums? In a bouquet, they appear as a compact and whimsical white form (there are hardly any individual flowers) which is usually the only white in my floral watercolours and therefore an important compositional and pictural element.
KEY DATES 1943 Born in the Netherlands. 1965-1970 Studied painting at Tilburg Academy of Fine Art, and then taught himself watercolour as this medium was a way of travelling light. 1974 He began to exhibit his work. 1986-1993 Taught art, in particular at Maastricht Academy of Fine Arts. 1993 He decided to devote himself to watercolour and travelled around Europe combining tourism, painting and fishing. Contact www.pietlap.com
Still Life 4. 76 x 58 cm.
You can never master watercolours. At least, I can’t. The medium is so willful, so dependent on coincidence and chance, it requires a speed of action you can’t always deliver. Things get out of control, failure lies constantly in wait and may strike within seconds. The chance that you produce something really good is always faint. That’s life, at least a watercolourist’s life. But can you really expect that everything your hands create will be a masterpiece? If you manage a 1 in 3 ratio, by which I mean one acceptable watercolour for three attempts, you’ll find yourself up there with the best. But enough pessimism. If, on the other hand, you do happen to paint a satisfactory or even a good watercolour, you will instantly forget all your disappointments and feel relief, joy and wonder: ‘did I really make that’, you’ll ask yourself ‘it must have been my lucky day!’ Sure, success is partly the result of experience, dedication and attentive observation, but on the other hand there is, thank goodness, so much that remains unpredictable. Some of the attractive aspects of watercolour are the result of happy coincidence, I call it ‘Painter’s luck’.
With every new watercolour I have the feeling that I have to make a fresh start; tabula rasa. The paper is so white it’s frightening, the subject is new, adrenaline builds up and you start getting nervous.
CHALLENGE AND INSPIRATION Though the act of painting itself is my main incentive, I pay great attention to my choice of subject. The subject must inspire and challenge me and a lot of concentration and energy goes into making that choice. I try to figure out a scenario: what to do, in what order and at what pace. In the meantime my eyes and mind survey the things I am going to paint: which shape, colour or light should I emphasise? Are those details worth painting? What about the composition? And most importantly: will the overall scene attract the spectator? Even if the act of painting is an interpretation of reality, I don’t stray too far from things as they appear to me. They deserve observation and respect.
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ART HISTORY
Cook with Red Apron. 1862. Watercolour, gouache and ink on paper, 20.8 x 16.2 cm. Walters Art Museum According to Philippe Burty, Léon Bonvin used his wife on several occasions as a model for his interior scenes: “He was evidently too shy to venture to paint faces, but he made her pose to bring life to some of his compositions.” These paintings are reminiscent of 17th century Dutch painting, while at the same time a perfect example of 19th century realism.
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Léon Bonvin The unknown genius Still Life with Cruets and Vegetables. 1863. Watercolour and ink on paper, 16.5 x 21.3 cm. Walters Art Museum.
ALTHOUGH LÉON BONVIN’S LIFE WAS TOUGH AND MUCH TOO SHORT, HE IS ONE OF THE MOST EMINENT FIGURES OF THE MID-19TH CENTURY FRENCH REALIST MOVEMENT. THE WALTERS ART MUSEUM IN BALTIMORE IS CURRENTLY EXHIBITING HIS WATERCOLOURS.
O
On January 30th, Léon Bonvin put his portfolio under his arm and went to see an art dealer hoping to sell a few watercolours. The answer was unequivocal: “Too dark, not gay enough.” The very next day, on the last day of January 1866, he hung himself in Meudon Forest. This talented artist was just 32 years old. Four days later, Léon Bonvin’s body was found near Villebois Pond, at the foot of the tree whose branch had given way under the weight of his body. The very next day, François Bonvin, brother of the deceased, wrote an entreaty to Albert de la Fizelière, the art critic and writer, in which he urged him to organise an auction, the profits of which would go to the painter’s widow and his three children who were now destitute. “The future seemed to him more gloomy than the past, [yet] he was indeed the best and purest of the best. As an artist, one has only to look at his drawings to recognize his worth.”Léon Bonvin was buried in a cemetery on the outskirts of Paris, in an area of unconsecrated ground reserved for those who had taken their own life. And so the short and sad life of this artist, obliged to become an
innkeeper to feed his family, came to an end. Little is known of him and not without reason. During his lifetime, his work was never seen outside a small circle of artists and the friends of his brother who were regulars at the family inn in Vaugirard, which was a humble village surrounded by plains but is now Paris’ bustling XVth arrondissement.
‘A SHEEP ’ S SOUL IN THE BODY OF AN OX ’ His only legacy is his watercolours, which combine disconcerting simplicity and stunning technical mastery, drawings and a few oil paintings. The largest collection of Léon Bovin’s work is at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore. It is quite simple: the artist died too soon and during his life, struggled to find time to paint as he was working to put food on the table for his family. Whilst he was alive, his paintings were never recognised at their true value and contemporary art critics took no interest in him. Léon Bonvin was born in 1834, the fourth child in a family of nine. His father was the W ATERCOLOUR N O .6 / M ARCH -M AY 2012
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THE ARTIST
MEET
Denny Bond 58
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Archived. 73.6 x 96 cm. “My background in graphic design means that this collection of rubber stamps brings together my love of type and painting. Placing the rubber stamps on a red table enhanced the existing reds in the rubber stamps themselves, while harsh lighting created the extreme darks.”
Guardians of time. 59.7 x 59.7 cm. “Using masking fluid to preserve the white of the paper sometimes results in a harsh white area, I gently scratched at the surface with a utility knife to soften edges.”
DENNY BOND APPROACHES EACH PAINTING WITH THE IDEA THAT HE WILL GO BACK AND REVIEW IT AT A LATER DATE. HE WORKS ON COMPOSITION AND DETAIL IN A FIGURATIVE STYLE WITH A CHOICE OF SUBJECT MATTER THAT IS NOT PREDICTABLE, AND MAKES GREAT USE OF LIQUID WATERCOLOUR.
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FOCUS ON
SKETCHBOOKS HAVE BEEN AROUND SINCE THE TIMES OF THE OLD MASTERS AND HAVE BEEN USED FOR OBSERVING, CHRONICLING, COMMENTING AND PREPARING… HALF-WAY BETWEEN LITERATURE AND THE FINE ARTS, SOMEWHERE BETWEEN THE TRAVEL JOURNAL AND THE DIARY, A SKETCHBOOK IS FIRST AND FOREMOST A REFLECTION OF ITS AUTHOR’S THOUGHTS AND PERSONALITY. WATERCOLOUR LENDS
Joseph Stoddard THIS ARTIST IS DRIVEN BY A PASSION FOR THE LANDSCAPES AND ARCHITECTURE OF CALIFORNIA.
MY
SUBJECTS I have always been a fan of architecture and of urban scenes. My original goal was not necessarily to be an artist, but to document and sketch my town and everything around me in my daily life. Over the years and my travels around the state, this collection of sketches and paintings of what interested me has naturally become somewhat of a testimonial to this beautiful state and its varied and interesting architecture and landmarks.
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L OOSE
AND FREE PAINTING Most of the images in my collection of sketchbooks were done on site. According to me, sketches embody the essence of a good watercolour: they are fast, loose and casual. There is little time to labour over a sketch, it has to be done quickly, without time to fuss over it and kill it with detail. I try to capture that relaxed feeling in my formal paintings and sketching a lot helps me achieve that.
ITSELF PERFECTLY TO THE GENRE, TAKE THE EXAMPLE OF DELACROIX’S TRAVELS IN ALGERIA. THROUGH SEVEN ARTISTS, HERE IS THE CHANCE TO DISCOVER TODAY’S TRENDS FROM HOME-MADE SKETCHBOOKS TO YOUTUBE. TEXT: LAURENT BENOIST. PHOTOS : ALL RIGHT RESERVED.
THE ARTIST’S ADVICE
C ONTACT : www.josephstoddard.com
- Be comfortable when sketching – bring a portable chair. - Work small – I do most of my work in a 15 x 23 cm. Aquabee sketchbook. - Do little study sketches until you have a sense of the scene and what you want to express. - Bring a small paint set, not a big ‘studio on wheels’ – you want to be able to set up fast, complete the sketch, and move on.
- You can take almost any subject and make a nice sketch or painting out of it. You need to feel free simplify it, to recompose it, to crop it, take some liberties with size and scale or emphasize the lights and darks. Make the scene be the raw materials that you use to express what you want to. Getting it right: Many students make the mistake of putting too much into the scene.
NE W !
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