Friday 10 October 2014

Christine Adams - Flowers in Watercolour

 When Christine saw the protective sheet spread over the carpet there was a definite suspicion that we knew how she works - lots of water so she can apply her pigments wet in wet. Actually we always protect the floor no matter which artist is demonstrating but the comments gave a good indication of what to expect.

The photo on the left shows the still life arrangement she had set up as inspiration for her painting. You'll see when you get to the final picture here that the image on the paper didn't slavishly follow the subject: colour and composition change.

She used a Bockingford 140lb  watercolour paper (that's 300gsm in real money!) taped onto a board that was almost vertical on the easel. In her own studio she usually works flat and begins at the centre. For the demonstration she started at the top right and worked across and down going a long way with the development of each section before moving on. The paper was wetted to start with and sections were dampened again with clean water before pigment was applied.

I found her mixing palette interesting as she had adapted a photographic tripod to hold it. See image on right.

This was a fascinating demonstration of wet in wet watercolour painting which showed how to get away from colouring-in which often happens when too much detail is drawn onto the paper. And quite clearly this seemingly free style of applying paint still does need a lot of skill and control.

Five more images follow