JOHN HARVEY

WATERCOLOUR WORKSHOP - SKIES - 02.06.2015

John started the session by explaining that he had been painting skies in water-colour for many years and he was going to talk about the skies in the paintings he had brought with him.  After this he would walk around and see if he could help whilst we all tried our hands at our very own sky!  He explained that the seasons brought very different skies and varying colours and shapes.  He showed us a wonderful winter sky over a countryside scene and you could feel the crispness in the furrows of the field!  He also showed us summer skies, autumn and spring as well as sunsets – stormy skies and different cloud formations.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He talked about the colours he had used – and the techniques that he had applied.  Some wonderful misty wet into wet and some sharper skies where he had used an almost dry brush.  He explained that some effects could best be achieved with particular paper.  He, personally, liked to use a very heavy grade which meant that he didn’t have to stretch his paper before he worked!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

John suggested we choose which sky we wanted to do and he would walk around and see if he could offer any help.  The great thing about this session was that it was very sociable and no-one felt under any pressure to produce a masterpiece.   Those of us to whom water-colour had always seemed a bit of a difficult mystery had a go too and in many cases produced some not bad offerings!

 

We enjoyed moving around and looking at one another’s work and the general consensus was that this wasn’t quite what we had envisaged but that it had stretched us to produce something without any specific references.  Many of our number said that they would have preferred it if they had known the form the evening would take and that they would then have brought their own references but others seemed happy to use their imagination.  Comments included that they felt it useful to have different approaches explained and that they found it challenging!  It was not so easy to copy someone else’s work but it was great fun!  One of our members even suggested that it lowered the blood pressure enormously!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We always enjoy a workshop and this was no different – working from imagination was different for most of us and it had been challenging, pushing us into doing something different from usual.   We all agreed that it had been a fun evening. 

 

Thank you John for opening our eyes to new options and showing us how you achieve your wonderful results.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Watch out for the skies at the next exhibition! – one thing’s sure – they’ll all be thought about considerably and they’ll all be quite quite different!!