The spontaneity of watercolour painting

On Monday evening I gave a demonstration which was all about the spontaneity of watercolour painting at The Hurlingham Club, London.

I laid out four large sheets of watercolour paper – two of which I had prepared with a cadmium orange ground.

The demonstration was completed within twenty minutes…..

I used flowers as my jumping off point….allowing the brush to dance across the paper.

When working off the ground, I added some gouache to the mix…..

A magical hummingbird for the weekend…..

A Bientôt

Colourful landscape exercise

This colourful landscape is inspired from when I lived in the beautiful Brecon Beacons National Park, Wales where the light is so dramatic.

The following landscape exercise is excellent for warming up and uses the same techniques.

Working on white paper, I add lots of water to the top half of the paper and then add juicy red and orange watercolour paint into the wet area….allowing it to bleed.      Feel free to use any colour combination you like.

Note that the bottom part of the paper is still dry.

In this frame, I use a clean wet brush to  gently pull down some of the paint from the horizon line, making sure to leave some dry white areas between the foreground and the horizon.

I now add some of the same intense dark shown on the horizon line to the bottom of the image to give the image a sense of balance.   I have also indicated the boundaries of fields…leaving dry white areas.

Given that the sky reflects directly onto the land, I brought the same colours from the sky into the foreground.   Note that there are still dry white areas showing…..

Also I have allowed the paint to settle and do its own thing which is one of the exciting elements of watercolour painting.    

Using a knife I scraped out some paint in the foreground.

http://www.janetweightreed.co.uk

Floating free of time like the Magical Hummingbird

HummingbirdHQ.com

 

 

A Bientôt