Watercolour Workshop E-Book

Ann Blockley

• Herausgeber: Batsford
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 96

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

An inspirational and practical art manual, packed with step-by-step projects. Artist Ann Blockley is renowned for her innovative approach to watercolour painting. Her highly anticipated new book provides a series of workshops demonstrating how to push the boundaries of watercolour, using key techniques to develop your own work and take your paintings to the next level. Ann's easy-to-follow, step-by-step projects demonstrate how some of her most dramatic paintings are created. She describes in detail some of the key techniques used and how you can experiment with alternative methods to create your own interpretations. Finally, her beautiful and inspirational artworks demonstrate how different interpretations of a subject might take an unexpected or unusual direction, and how to make the most of these opportunities. The book moves, with progressively challenging projects, from loose wildflower meadows, textured woodland and rustic rambling walls to atmospheric or semi-abstract landscape corners, all rendered in Ann's adventurous signature style. Loose, expressive mark-making and unusual techniques include combining water-based paint and ink with granulation medium for dramatic texture, drawing with twigs, using gesso and collage to create unique effects; manipulating paint with materials such as plastic wrap (clingfilm); developing printed marks made using found materials. Following the huge demand for more practical guidance in experimental painting, the book provides plenty of techniques and instruction. Ann's personal commentary also gives a unique insight into the mind of the artist – ways of looking at your subject, how to explore and experiment – to unlock the potential of your watercolour painting.

Leseprobe

Ann Blockley’s

WATERCOLOURWORKSHOP

PROJECTS AND INTERPRETATIONS

Ann Blockley’s

WATERCOLOURWORKSHOP

PROJECTS AND INTERPRETATIONS

Dedication

To imagination, integrity, and interpretation; to being true to yourself.

CONTENTS

GETTING STARTED

About this book

Watercolour interpretations

Ways of seeing

Drawing and exploring

Photography

Decision-making

Materials

Colours

Surfaces

Brushes and other tools

FLOWER AND FIELD

Project: Wildflower Meadow

Techniques

Taking it further: adding other mediums

Varying your palette

Adding collage details

Expressive mark-making

Using your imagination

Project: White Flower

Techniques

Experimenting with different surfaces

TREES AND HEDGEROW

Project: Autumn Hawthorn

Techniques

Techniques: twiggy mark-making

Taking it further: using gesso and tissue paper

Creating interesting greens

Through the seasons

Making a statement

Creating mystery and mood

LANDSCAPE FEATURES

Project: Country Walls

Taking it further: wall textures

Developing your theme

Gates and fences

Painting water

Project: Beehive

Techniques: geometric mark-making

TOWARDS ABSTRACTION

Project: Abstract Beginnings

Taking it further: lateral thinking

Adding focal points

Echoing nature

Techniques: abstracting shapes with monoprints

Developing your monoprints

Project: Fern and Flight

Taking it further: found material

Moving forwards

Index

Getting started

Blackberry Hedge (detail)

This book is about YOU. It is designed to help you create your own personal workshop and make unique interpretations. I am passionate about the idea that artists at every level should create work that reflects something of themselves, expressing an individual viewpoint. The following pages are about ways of seeing as well as ways of doing. I cannot see through your eyes but I can act as facilitator while giving you a practical helping hand to encourage you as you play with paint, develop your own voice and interpret your world.

“AS PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT, I CANNOT BUT MAKE PROGRESS; EACH DRAWING ONE MAKES, EACH STUDY ONE PAINTS, IS A STEP FORWARD.”

VINCENT VAN GOGH

About this book

I have called this book Watercolour Workshop because it is packed with practical advice about water-based mediums. However, its main aim is to be a springboard to inspire your creative development. I have divided the book into flexible projects, including demonstrations with optional alternative techniques to be used as starting points for your own adventures. I have deliberately not shown every minor stage in order to encourage an adaptable approach. Traditional ‘step by steps’ can give the idea that there is a set formula to painting, when of course there are an infinite number of possibilities. The purpose of the demonstrations and interpretations that follow is to stimulate inventive thinking.

The projects do not need to be followed in order; you can pick and mix between them, as the content is interchangeable between chapters. For example, the wildflower meadow on pages 26-29 can be painted simply or made more complex by following ideas from the later abstract section. You might like to swap experimental methods for traditional ones according to your level of experience. If you are a fledgling painter you will probably stay close to my ideas, but take courage as you begin to fly and explore further. Banish the pressure to perform by planning to repeat the exercises, each time varying the colours, tones, composition, brushwork and marks or altering the focal point. There are also suggestions for taking things further and for adapting the subjects using your own reference material.

In the demonstrations I have sometimes included a sketch, photograph or still-life material to show what inspired the painting. This is the vital backbone to artwork. Ideas flow from a whole feast of personal experience and my advice is to prioritize the gathering of your own library of explorations. It is this personal selection that will ultimately give your paintings authenticity. Techniques are just a small part of being an artist, so please don’t skip through the sections about exploring and looking in order to get to the tasty technical tips!

Each chapter has been organized into subjects to give cohesion to the book. However, the subject is secondary to the painterly choices that help to make a unique interpretation. Thinking in abstract terms helps us to loosen up and steer away from pedantic detail. I have called the final section of the book ‘Towards Abstraction’ as it takes these thoughts a stage further.

The watercolour aspect of the workshop is simply that all the images were painted using water-based mediums and a basic knowledge of traditional methods is assumed. However, there is plenty of advice to help you use watercolour in different loose and expressive ways. When you practise the exercises, remember that watercolour varies according to many factors such as consistency, paint, colour mixing, temperature and humidity. Your own interpretations are likely to vary from those shown here. Remember that there is no right or wrong way to do it – this workshop is about enjoying watercolour and using it in your own way.

Metamorphosis

Paintings metamorphose like a butterfly unfolding from its cocoon. I hope this book will help your creativity unfurl.

Watercolour interpretations

Winter Teasels by the Pond

In this version I have changed the colours to a more wintry palette of blues and purples. Even the colours of the tree trunks share this colour scheme.

Teasels by the Pond

I see this clump of teasels by a local pond on an almost daily basis and enjoy painting different versions of it. Some of the interpretations vary considerably, while others contain only subtle variations. In this interpretation I illustrated my mental description of ‘sparkles’ and ‘tangles’. Thinking about the tapestry of undergrowth and light on the water as adjectives helped me to see them in a more decorative way.

One of the main lessons of this book is about interpreting your subject. One definition of interpretation is to ‘bring out the meaning’ and as artists what we find meaningful helps to define our individual voice. Sometimes interpretation can mean the point when we depart from reality and use imagination rather than simply representing our subject. It may also mean exaggerating or emphasizing particular aspects of what we see in order to make a point. More subtly, it may be the relative emphasis we give each element of design to determine the overall mood.

Another way of looking at this is that when you explore a subject you are weaving a uniquely descriptive visual story around it. You may want to whisper, shout or sing your tale depending on your mood or personality and you need to decide what is and is not relevant to the plot. Your storytelling or how you interpret a subject is what makes it original. In painting we use mark-making instead of words with adjectives and nouns. However, thinking of a subject in terms of the adjectives that describe it can help to clarify your selection of appropriate methods and marks. This also seems to encourage movement to a looser, more impressionistic approach.

Throughout the book, after each project, I have extended the theme with other interpretations of similar subjects. These show varied moods, colours or textures, depict different seasons or times of day and use alternative methods or levels of detail or realism. They are not included to showcase my paintings but to ignite your excitement about creating your own images. Try to get into the habit of thinking in series so that your paintings are part of an ongoing project. The changes between each version may be dramatic or subtle. Working on a series can help to take the pressure to perform away and leads to a deeper involvement with the paint and the subject.

My late father, John Blockley, wrote a book called Watercolour Interpretations many years ago. In it, he wrote: ‘The process of extending one’s imagination to produce interpretations of similar subjects is exciting in itself, but it is also self-perpetuating, with one discovery leading to another and resulting in changes of direction.’ I have always found this an inspiring idea and have unashamedly borrowed it as a fundamental concept of this book.

Ways of seeing

This photo and the quick paint sketches (previous) were all made at the same location. The process of sketching helps you clarify which features are most important to you and can help raise your subconscious thoughts to the fore.

Interpreting is not simply about using a different colour or technique; it is to do with your individual way of looking at things. The way to develop this artistic facility is to spend just as much, if not more, time on looking and recording before you paint as you do on your finished pieces. To get away from the habit of seeing a scene in its potentially boring reality you need to use ‘artist’s eyes’ and the more you practise that creative selection through sketching the quicker new habits will develop.

Sketching and photography both have a role to play in the gathering of information for paintings. Photography has the advantage of being convenient and quick. The benefit of sketching from life is that it also teaches you how to look in a different, more interesting way. You have to be ruthless when you select and make choices.

The plein air landscape sketches here were all made in a few minutes each. They were done in acrylic but the medium or method you use is of less importance than the activity itself. When you compare the sketches with the snapshot taken at the same time it is astonishing how the colours of the landscape on a fairly drab day have been transformed in the painted versions. I simply would not have thought to include these pigments in a finished painting of the scene without having gone through this process. This is because the information-gathering was not just through a restricted rectangle in a viewfinder but grew out of being immersed in a 360-degree experience using all senses. What is also clear is how the unromantic telegraph poles and other mundane shapes that you may normally banish from your painting have been recorded with marks that convert them into the eloquent abstract shapes that they actually are.

Drawing and exploring

We have looked at how sketching from life enriches your paintings, but I also want to highlight how the more you draw and explore a particular subject the more familiar you will be with its different characteristics. As your knowledge grows you will find that certain elements interest you more than others and this will inevitably feed into your paintings. When you are confident about the correctness and reality of something it can free you up to be more imaginative and let go of some of that information. The more selective you are the stronger your voice.

Your explorations can be made in the traditional way with pencils or ink or be more experimental. One of these sketches has been made by painting on top of a torn piece of photograph. You can do anything you want. The important thing is to have fun with your observations, immersing yourself in a theme and becoming thoroughly obsessed with it. When you dig deep, you can discover treasure!

Photography

I love photographing a subject from different angles through the seasons.

It is also fun to manipulate your images in different ways – like this altered view through the sunflowers.

It is very important to draw and sketch, but photographs definitely play their part. I love my camera and am as passionate about taking large quantities of photographs as I am about the idea of using sketches. A collection of images has an exciting cumulative effect that single snapshots do not achieve. This energy will nourish your subsequent paintings alongside the other information you have gathered. When there are technical issues in an isolated photograph such as the colour being distorted or a tone too contrasting you have the rest of the crowd to support you with the missing information.