Alison
Board Demonstrates Watercolours with a Difference
Alison enjoys a reputation as an experimental
watercolour artist. She has used many different kinds of art materials since
working in an art shop. She loves combining them with watercolour in unusual
ways. A list of the materials that she used in the demonstration appears at the
end of this article.
Alison prefers to allow the painting to
develop without controlling it too much: ‘Don’t have an end result in mind,
then you will not be disappointed’. She asks two questions at the beginning:
‘What does the subject need in order to bring it to life?’ and ‘What do I fancy
using today?’
We were surprised to see her begin by tracing the daisy heads from her photograph using a biro - but they were very simple shapes. A Maskaway eraser removed unwanted marks left by the tracing paper.
Alison’s usual palette consists of three ‘cold’ colours, in this case: Daniel Smith Prussian blue, cobalt violet and green gold plus one additional colour. She avoids mixing colours or overworking a painting. “Brushing the paint into the surface of the paper results in ‘dead’ colours.” She applied splashes of prussian blue and green gold wet-in-wet and allowed them to run down. She said that half the fun of painting is ‘the unexpected’.
Demonstrating one of her favourite techniques – incorporating quotes or printed paper – Alison pasted strips from a map of the Totton area onto the paper using Bindex adhesive below and above them. She brushed Daniel Smith’s Watercolour Ground over and around parts of the strips. This enabled her to paint over an otherwise water-repellent surface. Watercolour Ground is very useful for increasing texture, making cut edges less noticeable or covering a painted area. It enables watercolours to be used on glass, metal, plastic and other surfaces.
We were surprised to see her begin by tracing the daisy heads from her photograph using a biro - but they were very simple shapes. A Maskaway eraser removed unwanted marks left by the tracing paper.
Alison’s usual palette consists of three ‘cold’ colours, in this case: Daniel Smith Prussian blue, cobalt violet and green gold plus one additional colour. She avoids mixing colours or overworking a painting. “Brushing the paint into the surface of the paper results in ‘dead’ colours.” She applied splashes of prussian blue and green gold wet-in-wet and allowed them to run down. She said that half the fun of painting is ‘the unexpected’.
Demonstrating one of her favourite techniques – incorporating quotes or printed paper – Alison pasted strips from a map of the Totton area onto the paper using Bindex adhesive below and above them. She brushed Daniel Smith’s Watercolour Ground over and around parts of the strips. This enabled her to paint over an otherwise water-repellent surface. Watercolour Ground is very useful for increasing texture, making cut edges less noticeable or covering a painted area. It enables watercolours to be used on glass, metal, plastic and other surfaces.
Green gold watercolour was used for the daisy
centres, followed by a clear wax resist stick over them instead of masking
fluid. Brusho powder was brushed around the daisy petals and sprayed with
water. The unpainted daisy petals provided areas of strong contrast i.e. white
flowers against blue background, with even darker areas beneath the
flower-heads.
This was the point at which Alison stepped back and
asked herself “What does it need?” She has a wide variety of media at her
disposal and enjoys choosing which ones to use. Her view on the painting
process is: “You have to enjoy it, or
it’s not worth it”. She used scribbling strokes to shape the flower centres and
add cobalt violet shadows. The flower stems were painted with Daniel Smith
Zoisite Genuine which is a light blue-green.
Nearing the end of the painting session she put
herself on “faff alert” because she prefers to have unresolved areas rather
than an overworked painting. She chose to leave the flower stems not anchored
at the bottom. You should aim to finish half an hour before you would normally
finish. Her finished painting proved that best quality watercolour paints and
paper together with mixed media can achieve beautiful results.
Materials (Most are available from the
SAA website) SAA White nylon No. 6 brush : Larger nylon &
sable brush : Palette knife
Saunders Waterford Paper 140lb (not
stretched)
Daniel Smith Watercolour paints squeezed
into pans: Prussian blue, cobalt violet, green gold, zoisite
genuine which is a blue-green.
(Alison loves lamp black,
amethyst and sleeping beauty turquoise and hates paynes grey: an example of a
hue containing more than two pigments.)
Brusho powdered ink : Daniel Smith Watercolour Ground : Clear wax stick
Tracedown paper : Maskaway masking fluid
block (or putty eraser)
Pebeo Bindex adhesive : Torn strips
printed map : Spray bottle of water
