Painting Expressive Watercolours

Introduction

Watercolour is a medium that is capable of expression ranging from the most finely detailed of botanical studies to the most loosely gestural of marks. As a pigment it is easy to take out into the countryside and as a painting it is comfortable in a domestic environment and very portable for travelling exhibits. Such accessibility has gained it a unique standing with both professional and amateur artists.

ITALIAN ALPS

45.5 × 66cm (18 × 26in)

This picture was painted in the studio from a small study I did on a coach on the way through Italy. I awoke at 6 am, with cold England several hours behind me, and drew a five-minute sketch to catch the memory of the warmth of the stones and the mountainous landscape.

A brief history

In its simplest form, watercolour was used in Europe more than 10,000 years ago when cave-dwellers of the Upper Palaeolithic era mixed red earth with water and used it to paint pictures of hunters and their prey on the cave walls. Yet in the Christian era in Britain, it was not appreciated as an art medium in its own right until the 19th century, when Queen Victoria gave the royal seal of approval that brought it firmly into the purview of the art establishment.

It may have been watercolour’s simplicity that made it seem inferior to the business of sculpting and painting in oils. A provincial artist of the 15th century would have had to make do with what could be obtained in his village, and a simple starch glue combined with pigment was easier to achieve than the more complex binder and oils required for oil painting. Pigment itself was scarce, and the artist would often accept it as his fee.

By the 18th century, watercolour was well established as a means of making a topographical view of the landscape. While families making the Grand Tour of Europe took along their art tutor, in effect to provide the holiday photographs, professional artists such as Alexander Cozens (1717–1786) and Francis Towne (1740–1816) travelled extensively in Italy. It became part of the English tradition that one went abroad to do watercolour paintings of exotic ruins – except that they were known as watercolour drawings, as the medium was not even dignified by the recognition that it was paint.

CADER IDRIS, NORTH WALES

John Varley (1778–1842)

24 × 35cm (91/2 × 133/4 in)

In this classic landscape the tree acts as a framing device and points the eye towards the figures almost hidden below the bank. Their comparative insignificance was a new development in art.

The impact of war

In 1799 the Napoleonic Wars broke out and Europe was closed to the British traveller. Artists were forced to turn to their native landscape, and the land itself became a subject rather than being a backdrop for portraiture. John Varley (1778–1842), Thomas Girtin (1775–1802), John Sell Cotman (1782–1842) and David Cox (1783–1859) ushered in the golden age of British watercolour, while. Richard Parkes Bonington (1802–1828), William Callow (1812–1908) and, above all, Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851) drew inspiration from the maritime tradition of the nation. Girtin and Turner in particular explored the capacity of watercolour for creating atmospheric effects, experimenting with texture and colour.

The art establishment continued to reject watercolour nevertheless, and in 1804 a group of watercolourists instigated an annual exhibition in London. No fewer than 11,000 people attended in the first year, and by 1809 visitor numbers had risen to 23,000. These paintings of landscapes that were still largely inaccessible to town-dwellers aroused enormous interest, and in 1881 the Society of Painters in Watercolour was granted a royal charter and subsequently became known as the Royal Watercolour Society. By this time Europe was available again to travellers such as Francis Oliver Finch (1802–1862) and Edward Lear (1812–1888), but the British had now taken watercolours of their own land to their hearts.

CLASSICAL LANDSCAPE

Francis Oliver Finch (1802–1862)

55.5 × 75.5cm (213/4 × 293/4 in)

Within this typically British landscape painting with the calmness of a horizontal composition there is a theatrical approach to a romanticized view of classical history.

Into the 20th century

War has been a defining influence on British art, and artists such as Paul Nash (1889–1946) and Christopher Wynne Nevinson (1889–1946), who were sent to the trenches in the First World War as official war artists, demonstrated conclusively that watercolour was not limited to polite paintings of the landscape. The ease with which it could be transported made it ideal as a medium under such logistically difficult circumstances, and it proved that it was capable of expressing strong emotions. In the Second World War, Henry Moore (1898–1986) used watercolour in his sketches of the people of London wearily huddled in the underground stations while bombs rained down on the city.

In the 1950s polymer-based paints such as acrylics became available and art shops sprang up in every town. In the 1930s a sheet of handmade paper would not have been easy to acquire, but now there was a rapidly growing leisure industry and the market was there to serve it. The rise of adult education also had a big influence, with art classes easily available and fully booked both daytime and evening. Turner had been the first watercolourist to express equal interest in the surface quality of the medium and the subject itself, and his influence was still felt – but now there were new pigments and the liberating force of two world wars and the Cold War that succeeded them, which allowed artists to be even more expressive in their comment upon the world.

SEASCAPE WITH SHIPPING

William Callow (1812–1908)

17.5 × 25.5cm (67/8 × 10in)

The diagonals of the masts give this otherwise simple composition a dynamism often encountered in seascapes. The adventurous use of scratching out in the foreground waves adds another layer of interest to the painting.

The present day

Watercolour is capable of saying something simply and beautifully because of its luminosity and the sensual quality that allows the viewer to enjoy the paint without even thinking about the subject. However, a greater range of materials allows us as artists to explore new ways of expressing ourselves on paper. While many of my favourite painters such as Richard Parkes Bonington, David Cox, Thomas Girtin and Turner are very much in the classical tradition, modern-day artists such as Jenny Wheatley (b.1959) and Leslie Worth (b.1923) are using admirably innovative ways of handling pigment. Although they still acknowledge watercolour as a means of portraying a subject, both of these artists are concerned with the handling of colour as an activity in its own right.

It is becoming more accepted that other water-based media can be a part of a watercolour painting if they are applied with a watercolour technique that complements rather than destroys the qualities of the medium, but this does not mean that the barriers are coming down on the traditional landscape. As watercolourists we are living in exciting times where the boundaries are disappearing and we can draw from both the old and the new. We have shaken off the pilgrim’s burden of seeing ourselves purely as topographical landscape painters and recognized our medium as being capable of all sorts of emotional responses, and watercolour has finally taken its rightful place in the hierarchy of art.

PASSAGE TO INDIA

Jenny Wheatley (b.1959)

58.5 × 94cm (23 × 37in)

In this large mixed-media painting the subject matter with all its exoticism is shown with the exuberant treatment and density of colour that has become associated with watercolor, now regarded as a strong and expressive painting technique.

The scope of this book

In this book I hope to take you on a journey, some of it technical, some of it emotional, and all of it concerned with the excitement of watercolour painting.

Any work of art is a combination of three things – the subject matter, the materials and the temperament of the artist – but underlying that there must be some understanding of technique and how the pigment reacts when it is handled. The book contains chapters on materials, methods of laying down and lifting off paint, drawing, composition, tone and colour that will suggest exercises for you to do whether you are outdoors or painting at home. However, the emphasis throughout is on learning the practicalities of being expressive with watercolour by taking advantage of its unique qualities.

I travel widely in my work and many of my paintings are concerned with the quality of light in urban landscapes. A number of the paintings in this book are of subjects found in Italy, Spain and Czechoslovakia as well as in Britain, but you will find in them problems and answers that are pertinent to a painter in any setting. Some of them are of mundane places, but they speak of my involvement in the activity of painting. A picture is not always painted to create a finished product: more important is the learning experience each one offers, even to a professional artist.

BOATS IN THE DOCKYARD

40.5 × 56cm (16 × 22in)

This painting is concerned with line, tone, colour and composition, but above all with an expressive feel not only for the technicalities but also for that sense of time and place.

The freedom of painting

Most tribal societies have painting as a part of their culture, with the ability to decorate their own house, paint directly on their walls and comment on their own personalities within their own spaces. Unfortunately, in the West we have largely sidelined painting into something academic or commercial and there are too many people who go to galleries and say, ‘I wish I could do this myself’, without realizing that they can.

From an early age it is a naturally expressive action to pick up paints and describe your life – house, garden, mum and dad, the sky, the family pet. However, along come self-consciousness and the fear of failure, the need to find a job, raise a family and keep a roof over their heads, and art is put aside. When you begin to paint again as an adult, anxiety about technique can sometimes take precedence over your ability to respond emotionally to your subject. There is certainly a pain barrier of learning the rules to be worked through, but my hope is that this book will help you to the other side and give you the tools with which to rediscover your long-lost freedom to express yourself in paint.

MYSTRAS, GREECE

35.5 × 51cm (14 × 20in)

For me the joy of painting is apparent in a picture like this: the excitement of new places, the study of new things and the sense of magic when subject and medium work together. That sense of magic is a permanent reminder that with painting one is always a student.