Painting Animals in Watercolour E-Book

Liz Chaderton

• Herausgeber: Crowood
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

Artists seem compelled to try to capture the amazing variety of the animal kingdom; the challenge remains how to breathe energy into your paintings and make the animals jump off the paper. This deeply practical book offers an accessible introduction to sketching animals from life, to try to capture that essence. It gives instruction on how to approach drawing; covers ideas for materials and supplies to make sketching from life a joy; gives step-by-step demonstrations of different watercolour techniques; offers specific advice on using colour and painting, fur, feathers and features and gives ideas for mixed-media experimentation. Full of colourful examples and guidance, this new book explains how to transform your studies into finished artwork that are brimming with character. It encourages you to find the extraordinary in the everyday, as well as revelling in the breadth of nature. Taking a contemporary approach to traditional watercolour, the author shows how a few, well-chosen brushes of paint can reveal the soul of your subject.

Leseprobe

PAINTING ANIMALSIN WATERCOLOUR

The Cow with the Zebra Ear, original size 35×35cm, watercolour on paper.

PAINTING ANIMALSIN WATERCOLOUR

Liz Chaderton

First published in 2020 by The Crowood Press Ltd Ramsbury, Marlborough Wiltshire SN8 2HR

[email protected]

This e-book first published in 2020

© Liz Chaderton 2020

All rights reserved. This e-book is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 1 78500 788 0

Dedication Thank you to everyone at Crowood for bringing this book to life. Grateful thanks to all my students at classes and workshops who have been guinea pigs – I always learn so much from them. I thank my family for their patience and tolerance as my art spreads from the studio into every room of the house. Finally, thank you to the beautiful animals (especially @bassethound_sofie) who have posed and bring me such joy.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

1 DRAWING TECHNIQUES

2 WHAT YOU NEED AND WHERE TO GO

3 USING COLOUR AND PHOTOGRAPHY

4 COMPOSITION AND DESIGN

5 WORKING UP YOUR SKETCHES

6 FUR, FEATHERS AND FEATURES

7 WATERCOLOUR

8 PEN AND WASH

9 MIXED MEDIA

USEFUL RESOURCES

INDEX

INTRODUCTION

The joy of capturing animals in artwork (and why you should draw from life)

Since the time when early Homo sapiens drew bison and wild horses on the walls of their caves, we seem compelled to capture the amazing variety of animal life and integrate their images into both our functional and decorative objects. What is so striking is that the animals in even these earliest depictions, though many thousands of years old, have a life and essence that leaps off the rocks and down the centuries at us.

Many artists still feel the same compulsion to draw animals today, and the challenge remains how to breathe life into our paintings and make the animals jump off the paper. For me, the question is how to capture the essence of the beast. Painting every hair or feather might capture a likeness, but a few well-chosen lines or brushstrokes of paint will capture the character and soul of the animal. It is the latter approach that we will explore here.

Catch Me While You Can. Crop of dodo painting in ink, watercolour and metal leaf on panel. Original size 46×55cm.

We are living through what scientists call the sixth mass extinction in Earth’s history. Human overconsumption is causing a crisis not just in the climate but for wildlife. Common and rare species are being lost, and we are to blame. Even the most humble farmyard sheep or domestic cat is a creature of incredible beauty and complexity. By discovering and capturing that beauty, and sharing it with others, I hope to prompt a more caring attitude to the animals with whom we share this planet and, in turn, the environment we all rely on.

It is inevitable that when you start drawing or painting animals you rely on photography; however, there comes a time when you will want to inject more life and movement into your work and you therefore need to study animals from life. The purpose of this book is to help you with the leap from simply capturing a likeness to really looking at and seeing the animal as it is.

The feasibility of a safari or venturing into the rainforest is low for most of us, but we may have pets, see wildlife in our parks or live within a relatively short distance of a zoo. While it can be daunting to work outside and in public, the benefits are immense. This book aims to be a really practical guide on where to go, what to take and how to overcome nerves. Rather than to be a glossy reference book, it has been written (I hope) in a way that you will feel you are painting or drawing along with me. I want to see its pages thumbed and splashed with paint.

Tabby, 35×45cm, watercolour on paper. A domestic moggy is as amazing as a wild tiger when you start really looking.

These sketches aren’t an end in themselves, and you might think that they are pretty rough, to be honest. Once you have studied and sketched your animal, you will want to develop your sketches into a more finished painting back in the studio, so the second half of this book gives prompts and ideas to help you do so.

I chose to use water-based media. You might think of watercolour paintings as delicate and ethereal – they can be, but they can also be vivid and passionate. You might think of them as subtle and hidden away behind glass – they can live exposed in the spotlight on canvas or panel. You might question their versatility, but watercolours can mix with other media and hold their own. I don’t think of watercolour and ink as poor cousins of oil paint or a pale imitation of acrylics. Watercolour is a powerful medium in its own right. I hope to convert you to my way of thinking.

Drawing and painting are skills to be learnt and practised. Just as you would not expect to be able to run a marathon without a preceding training regime, please do not be disheartened if your first sketches or paintings do not turn out as you wish. You need to train your eye and exercise your hand. Practice really will make perfect, and do keep your early pieces, to see how far you have travelled.

So, I would like this book to help you to see the extraordinary in the animals you encounter and also to explore the versatility of watercolour in capturing your observations of, and emotional responses to, animals.

Above all, if this book encourages you to pick up a pencil, pen or brush and try to capture the fauna around us, I shall feel it has achieved its goal.

On a Mission, 45x35cm, watercolour on paper.

We Are Family, 45x33cm, watercolour on paper. Painted after a visit to Birdland in Bourton-on-the-water to capture that lovely swoop of their bill and their blue legs.

CHAPTER ONE

DRAWING TECHNIQUES

Draw what you see, not what you know

Deciding to learn to draw and paint can be daunting. We procrastinate and sabotage our efforts by waiting until we have the perfect pencil and a pristine sketchbook or have collected the long list of recommended supplies. The good news is that all you really need is something to make a mark and a surface to put that mark on. You can start to train your eye to truly see by using a ballpoint pen and a piece of photocopier paper. So let’s jump straight into techniques and worry about materials later.

There are two main challenges when you start to draw. The first is training our hands and eyes to work together in a coordinated way. This is usually a simple issue of practice; do it enough and you will get better. The second challenge may be trickier, as it involves unlearning our experience so that we see reality and not what we expect to see. We need to learn to ‘forget’ what we are drawing and instead focus on the truth of the subject.

But first, to try to stop you turning ahead to the painting chapters, let’s consider why we should bother honing our drawing skills.

In a Twist, 35×55cm, pen and watercolour on paper.

Why draw from life?

You may be thinking that it would be so much easier to draw from a photograph than having to worry about your subject stretching and moving or your having to pack up your supplies and head off into a field or to the zoo.

Drawing forces you to study your subject more closely, allowing you to absorb its shape, form, character and movement unconsciously as you work.

The freshness and honesty obtained by drawing from a living creature is hard to imitate. If your subject may run off without a moment’s notice, you know you have to work quickly. What’s more, you soon work out what is crucial about that animal. Is every stripe of the cat important as it pounces on the mouse? No, of course not. However, the curve of the cat’s spine and the coiled energy in its back legs are. Working from life will make you take immediate decisions about what to put in and to leave out.

Drawing from a living subject can breathe life back into your work. So, even if you are an experienced artist, knowing that your subject may not stay around will help you to react faster and to improve your visual memory. Drawing anything in situ uses more than just sight; it uses all of your senses. Such sketching is incredibly rewarding. When you look at your sketchbook later, you will remember more about the whole experience, and an incomplete sketch will be richer than even the best photo.

Beyond everything, such drawing should be fun. You may get frustrated, but, even if your drawings are incomplete and far from perfect, the very fact that you have observed the animal featured in a sketch will have taught you a huge amount. That connection and knowledge will shine through subsequent work completed back in the studio.

Your subject might not be around for long, so get the most important information down while you can.

Life is short, but art is long

It takes time! The phrase ‘Life is short, but art is long’, rather than meaning that art goes on forever, means ‘There is so much art to learn and so little time to learn it in’.

There is a Chinese story about an emperor who told an artist to paint a cockerel for him. After a year, the emperor was fed up of waiting and demanded to know where his picture was. The artist brought out paint and paper and painted the most wonderful picture in five minutes flat. The emperor was furious at being kept waiting for something that took such a short time, until the (presumably terrified) artist showed the emperor around their studio, full of paper covered in drawings. It had taken a year to learn how to paint a perfect five-minute cockerel.

Therefore, remember that you will need to put in the time and effort to gain skills and confidence. Keep your early drawings or paintings and, when discouraged, look back and see how far you have come.

TIPS

•Look at your subject far more than you look at your paper.

•Try to draw as if you are seeing the animal for the first time.

•Observe for 90 per cent of the time; draw for the rest of it.

•Identify overall shapes and lines. Try to think of the subject not as a living thing but as a combination of three-dimensional shapes.

•Start with big shapes then work down to detail.

•Start with faint lines then add weight and detail.

•Be brave – it’s only a piece of paper!

•Draw quickly, and use your energy to capture the animal’s energy.

•Fill your page.

•If practical, draw big. It’s hard to be expressive on a postage stamp.

•Use photos for reference only for detail and texture.

Different drawing approaches

Described here are three different approaches to freeing up your drawing technique. You may find one to be more suitable for drawing certain animals or for your own personal style, but do try them all several times before rejecting or accepting each one.

Continuous-line drawing

What and why?

The basic idea is that you do not take your drawing implement off of the paper’s surface while you draw. It trains your eye to move smoothly around the subject. It is also perfect for quickly becoming familiar with the quirks of the animal that you are studying.

How?

Select a drawing medium that gives a constant line. Now, let your eye move flowingly around the subject – both its outline and its internal features – and look for contours. All the while, let the hand holding your drawing medium follow your eye. If you jump to a different part of the animal, do the same with your hand, keeping your pen, pencil or other drawing instrument on the paper all the time. You may repeat lines and end up with lines running across empty space – both are fine.

Should you find that your drawings are still tentative and tight, try continuous-line drawing with your non-dominant hand. What you lose in finesse you should gain in expression.

You can further train your hand–eye coordination by doing blind continuous-line drawing – in other words, you don’t look at your paper as you draw. You may end up with some very strange and Picasso-esque results, but they may also be charming.

Benefits

This is a fantastic way to start a drawing session, as it forces you not to take yourself too seriously, it also familiarizes you with the subject and ensures that your brain doesn’t let you skip over large portions.

This cat sketch must be twenty-five years old, yet I remember where I was when I did it. Drawing from life engages all of your senses and your memory, regardless of the quality of the sketch.

Using continuous line lets you spend more time looking at a moving subject. This toucan did not want to be drawn.

Gesture drawing

What and why?

The aim is to draw what you see, as you see it, in a variety of expressive marks. Gesture drawing allows you to rapidly record what you see and with purpose. This tends to work better on larger pieces of paper. Aim to hold your drawing implement at the end of its shaft to encourage free and expressive mark-making.

How?

It is important to look at your subject at least as much as you look at the paper. Imagine that you are describing the object with your hands while you talk to someone who doesn’t speak the same language as you. Those hand gestures are very much like the ones you make when gesture drawing. It is simply a quick sketch in which your hand follows your eye.

By attempting to capture the spirit of the animal through a series of flowing contour lines and rapidly sketched shadows, the result is an essence drawing. Gesture drawing is a loose form of sketching that attempts to capture your subject’s basic form and to express its movement.

Benefits

The making of the marks is quick and deliberate. You look at the subject and try to sum it up with a few marks, as you might describe it in a few words. Because you don’t have much time, each mark should say something significant about the subject.

Drawing by identifying shapes

Why and what?

This method relies on identifying the basic shapes that the animal is made up of. Look for keyshapes that either contain the animal (external shapes) or are contained within it (internal shapes). By drawing these shapes and then developing smaller shapes within them, you create the subject.

How?

At its simplest, you can identify flat, two-dimensional shapes: perhaps the head is a circle, the muzzle is a square and a haunch is an oval. Put these shapes together in appropriate sizes and positions and then join them together and develop more flowing lines to capture the animal’s form.

Alternatively, you might look for the shape that an animal fits within. An elephant seen head on fits within a coffin shape – flat across the top of its head, coming out to two points at the widest part of its ears and tapering down on both sides to the feet on the ground. In three dimensions, you may be able to see that the animal fits into a cube or a cylinder.

If you become a fan of this method, I highly recommend that you study The Field Guide to Drawing & Sketching Animals by Tim Pond.

This method can be overused as a shortcut to drawing, almost to be learnt by rote; for example, a duck might be drawn as an oval with a smaller one perched at the front for its head. Care needs to be taken that you observe the animal rather than making the assumption that it fits with the shorthand you have learnt.

Benefits

This method is particularly useful when drawing a foreshortened subject. If you identify that the animal is basically a cuboid with a leg at each corner then drawing it in perspective becomes easier.

Putting the techniques together

Realistically, as you develop your drawing skills, you will probably use a little of each of these methods in one sketch. You might identify a few shapes and roughly sketch them in using a more gestural approach and then check your work by using angles and lines, before finessing the contours, while observing the animal rather than looking at your paper.

However, by practising each method in its pure form, you will be able to find the strength and weakness of each approach and start to work out which feels natural to you or what type of mark-making suits each animal.

Making notes

It is useful to jot down incidental observations while you sketch. All things that you note are useful, regardless of how good or bad your sketches are. Some artists take this further, with their sketchbooks becoming in effect a visual diary. See Chapter 2 for more information about journaling, if this is a direction that you wish to go in.

The effort of studying an animal pays off when you come to paint it.

Don’t be afraid to make notes to prompt your memory. A note might be of an impression or an overheard snippet of conversation, perhaps about the animal or its environment, or be a colour prompt.