Techniques

Techniques

 

Watercolour is a fast and spontaneous medium and is wonderful for capturing the atmosphere and light of the Landscape. Watercolour can also be very frustrating and hard to master and always unpredictable.

But with time and patience and a lot of practice it is a most rewarding experience.

 

When talking about technique I have no secrets, just the tried and tested formulas that work. I’m very methodical when it comes to painting and I always follow a particular process or procedure, building the picture step by step until I have the end result in front of me. I’m not talking about painting by numbers here but I would liken it to playing a musical instrument. After you have learned a sequence of notes you practice those notes over and over again until the notes become melodious and start to flow effortlessly, played in perfect time. Painting can be a similar experience. You need to practice the different techniques over and over, often following the same sequence of events, to reach the rewards of a more spontaneous and flowing style.

 

As an example I shall give you a brief description of how I would produce a typical landscape painting.

 

Firstly I will spend time going through the various photographs I have taken on many a long walk, until a particular scene inspires me. I will sometimes have several photos of the same scene in front of me, taken from different angles, with a variety of different lighting effects and conditions. I will often print the photos on a large format, (A3 or A4), so as to get a better feel of the location.

     At this stage it is good to do some sketching! This is where we can start to plan the finished painting. Observation is everything and it’s nice to just sit and do a pencil sketch or two. Really looking hard at the scene to see what is important to the picture and what is not. Artistic licence plays a big part and as the artist you can literally move mountings, trees, change the direction of a river. Whatever is necessary to create the best composition and ultimately produce the most impact. Having said that, I still try to capture the essence of the landscape I am painting. Mountains have faces just like people so I like to bring a certain amount of realism to my work, to give it a sense of place. If I am working on quite a complicated picture I will often produce a full colour watercolour sketch from the pencil sketch. This helps to establish the colour treatment, atmosphere and tone of the picture. It also gets me warmed up for the final piece and helps to eliminate any possible hazardous mistakes that may occur. It doesn’t matter if you make a mistake on the sketch but it can be disastrous on the final painting.

    Ok! I am now ready to paint.

 

The paper I use is usually a heavy weight (300lb) Saunders Waterford rough. With this paper there is no need for stretching. The paints I use are artist quality Windsor & Newton tubes. My brushes are a range of large round sable’s sizes 24, 16, 10, 7 and a series of riggers from size 8 to 0.

 

I would start by drawing out the main elements of the scene using a 3B pencil. I try not to over do it with detail so as not to kill spontaneity. I then add a little masking fluid to preserve the extreme highlights. Now here comes the nervous first stage of the painting. I start with the sky. This will establish the atmosphere of the whole painting. I try to capture the sky as quickly as possible using a wet in wet technique bringing a wash of pale raw sienna down over the whole landscape as a kind of under-painting. This helps to create Unity and most importantly for me, covers all that glaring white paper. Then I let it dry.

 

I would like to make a quick note on mixing colour. I always use a limited palate and will spend sufficient time mixing the colours before I start to paint. I always mix plenty of colour in a ceramic palette with deep wells. I can keep dipping in to these colours time and again to retain the overall unity in the painting. It is so important to get the right tones as well as the right hues of colour. So it’s worth spending that little extra time to get it right. Once I’ve mixed my colours I can work very fast, particularly if there’s a large area to cover, and I don’t need to worry about stopping at a critical stage and remix.

 

The mountains and background come next. I usually use the same colour I mixed for the sky, or something close, so as to give a feeling of distance. Cool colours such as Cobalt Blue mixed with a little Brown Madder to create a bluish grey is ideal. A good point to remember is, cool colour’s recede while warm colours bring things closer. So cool colours for background and warm for foreground. This is one of those formulas I mentioned earlier. I would start with a simple wash for the mountains covering the whole area. Once this wash dries I can then add a few details such as shadows and crags etc.

 

A good picture weather it be a photograph or a painting will always have a strong focal point. This could be anything from a building to a group of trees or a nice group of rocks maybe. Anything that catches the attention and creates a strong point of interest can be used. Obviously, this is something I need to plan at the sketching stage when working to achieve the most balanced composition. A lead in such as a river or path can be placed in the composition to lead the viewer’s eye to the focal point. Adding these elements will always help to create a strong composition but are not necessarily essential.

Let’s not forget spontaneity. Anyway, the rest of the painting is built largely around these critical elements depending on the subject.

 

With watercolour, I always work from the lightest tones first. Working from light to dark is the best approach; if you want to retain the freshness and translucency of the medium. Most importantly, don’t fiddle. The quickest way to create mud is spending too much time on one area. Moving as quickly as possible from one area to another will help to retain that elusive fresh and spontaneous quality.

 

That just about covers the basics of my methods and techniques.

In the near future, I plan to publish a full working demonstration on this Web Site. This will include photographs of each stage with full and detailed descriptions of the procedure and techniques used, plus notes on colour and tone.  ~ Chris Hull