Watch our slide show to see Bill's watercolour demo!

 

Our August meeting featured a popular artist with the Faversham Art Society - Bill Newton.

 

‘Careful carelessness’ were the watch-words from Bill for this session!  They described his methodology but actually every brush stroke was very carefully placed and the final result looked anything but careless!

 

Bill was working with a heavy duty watercolour paper at a vertical angle so we could see what he was doing.  This also made life a little more difficult for him as everything wet wanted to run quickly to the bottom of the sheet. However he worked even quicker and with a little assiduous wiping with a paper towel - there didn’t seem to be a problem for him at all!

 

Working wet into wet on the sky he started with a raw sienna and a little warm orange to warm it up – particularly near the horizon and behind the farmhouse.  Higher up it was a mix of ultramarine and Windsor blue to make for a really natural sky.

 

All the way through Bill was making sure that he was working to describe where the light was coming from, and from the sky Bill worked on the distant trees along the horizon.  Using lemon yellow he ‘lit’ where the foliage would be from the right and with ultramarine he defined the shapes.  All the time he was telling us where the light and the shadows would appear.

 

For the branches he worked dry into wet using a little burnt sienna added to the ultramarine.  He wanted these branches to leak into the foliage.   “A tree has to have structure” he told us “Imagine it standing without foliage so you can paint around and through the foliage.”  He added some burnt sienna to some lemony foliage to give just a suggestion of a tree turning into autumnal shades.

 

As he worked he told us of how as a younger man he had worked on the Bayswater Road off the railings.  There was good quality work here.  He used to sell paintings in company with many artists who became well known.

 

About that time he along with many other artists would practice by copying the masters!  Because they would have been subject to copyright they were displayed but posted ‘Not for sale’.  One prospective American purchaser asked why one particular painting of his was not for sale and Bill explained.  The American asked again how much he would be asking if he was able to sell it.  Bill replied about £1000 at which point the American got out his wallet and started counting!  Bill then suggested that he might give him the picture for free but he would have to charge him £1000 for the frame!!  The deal was done!

 

On this subject Bill directed us to a very informative book called ‘I was Vermeer’ by Frank Winn.  There was a comment about Camile Corot who was very prolific and painted some 3,800 pictures.  The interesting thing was that there were some 7,500 in American collections!!

 

Bill was adding more detail now and looking at the focus of the picture – the farm scene itself.  When Bill started on the cows he explained that although they were small we still had to look at tone and be aware that the darker parts would be lighter at the top and darker at the bottom.  With the farmer he put in the shape initially in a flesh tone.  If this had been a woman in a dress he would have the right colour legs to start with and faces would also be right – so it depended on the subject.  All the time he was using a little dilute ultramarine to darken the shady side or underside of the cattle and where necessary on the back in order to play light against dark and dark against light.

Just a little dilute ultramarine now for shadow on the building – to change the shade to a darker colour than what is was. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                           

finally to darken the foreground with French ultramarine and sometimes a little extra to make it violet.  This way he was giving us the shadows from the trees in the foreground that were out of the picture frame.  Darkening the foreground makes the middle and distance recede and it lifts the eye particularly when you put a mount on it.  It describes the ground it rests on so it’s a grass shaped shadow going up and over the grass and down ever so slightly over the roadway.

 

Quickly into the mount and frame and voila!