I watch my friend and fellow artist Rob Downs dip his brush into a small pond of watercolour paint
and brusquely wash it onto a “ground”; usually white paper of his choice, then a dip of another colour using the same brush -and this happens a couple of times.
I hold my breath as the watercolours run absolutely everywhere.
The light filters of colour overlap and dry fairly quickly leaving small white bits of paper showing through.
The result is exquisite, soft, romantic, and I stand there and say “more, more”.
He will look at me, smile, and just as quickly begin drawing figures with his paint brush.
After that he fills in his dark hues for the shadow areas, then the lighter colours, and in no time, voila!
He has a unique watercolour painting, while I am still gasping, trying to catch up on what just happened.
It sounds and looks so easy!
But my artist friend practises constantly on bits of waste paper, until he feels he has perfected a shape, style, mood, colour, or whole form.
I want to cry when I see him paint a beautiful fruity image, which
to me looks perfect, which he then throws to the floor and I want to rush and
save it.
I have often asked, considering that although the old adage of
practise makes perfect: “How perfect do you want to be?”
I express my sentiments as is the opinion of one of my lecturers: “Always use the best materials at all times; you never know when you’ll create your masterpiece.” He ignores my lecture and, with all these masterpieces lying all over the floor,
still more are sent floating to the floor.
No doubt water-colourists will agree that learning to paint in watercolours is
very exciting, but does not happen overnight.
Watercolour is very different to oils; mixing of paints and unlike oil painting which is pre-mixed
on a palette, perhaps adding white and you can see at a glance the resultant colour,
the water colourist has a ”little pond” of paint in something that resembles a small egg cup.
And for the life of me I cannot tell what colour it is by
looking at the dark liquid.
Then, by painting colour on white supports, it imbues light and life.
Every stroke retains its precise shape and colour; it does not dissolve the underlying tone – amazing!
Thus several layers can be applied without producing muddy tones. Where parts of the image are left without colour at all, meaning that only the paper shows as the neutral colour – white, and is termed as “white space”.
The fresh, clean, watercolour painting is something which, as an oil painter, will always fascinate me.
Next time you see a watercolour painting explore it carefully and enjoy the techniques, subtlety and ingenuity of the watercolour artist.
I sincerely doff my hat to you watercolour artists.
