Innholdsfortegnelse for Fall 2024 i Watercolor Artist

Throughout my career as an artist, I've worked in oil, acrylic, pastel, charcoal, and pen and ink, but I always come back to my first love—watercolor. Why? Because watercolor is beautiful, unpredictable and sometimes even untamable, which makes working with it interesting and challenging. Before I begin a watercolor landscape painting, I map out the scene in my sketchbook to determine what I want to paint and how I want to execute it. I use a loose, fluid and dynamic painting style—sans guide marks or sketching—so that viewers are drawn into the scene, sense movement and action, and feel something. Th is style of painting brings a new level of challenge to an already challenging medium. The smaller the painting, the less intimidating it can be, so I worked at…

British watercolorist John Hoar is an avid proponent of simplicity in water-color painting. Th e highly respected artist and sought-after workshop instructor, who has logged more than five decades of experience, asserts that it's important not to diminish a painting's vitality by including unnecessary details. “Accuracy can be the death of poetry,” he says. “Often, the goal of many an amateur painter is accuracy. After a while, though, you learn to leave things out and bring other things in. Many of J.M.W. Turner's paintings of Venice are wildly inaccurate, for example, but are sublime for that. It's essential to remember that a painting isn't a photograph.” DIRECT & STRAIGHTFORWARD Hoar himself never works from photographs, emphasizing that they provide far too much visual information. Instead, while in the presence of…

Mark Bird spent 40 years working as an architectural illustrator and interior designer prior to shifting his full-time focus to fine art, in 2017. His painting, The Inescapable Charm of the Cawein House, ca 1958, was recently accepted into the Missouri Watercolor Society's 2024 International Exhibition and was awarded the Winslow Homer Award by juror Kathleen Conover. “I was inspired by my memories of visiting the scene as a young child,” says Bird of his prizewinning painting. “It's no small order to paint an emotion, but I knew my vivid memories of that glorious environment would serve me well.” The artist's uncle, Malcolm Bird, whose living room is the subject of the piece, was the founder of the St. James Court Art Show, in Louisville, Ky. The show, now in…

When she was 11, Pennsylvania artist Eileen Sudzina dusted off a set of acrylic paints that had been given to her sister but never used. One day, while her family was away, she laid out a canvas on the floor beneath a window and began to paint over the shadow that appeared on it, cast by leaves. As the shadow moved, she shifted the canvas to follow it and continued painting. “In about 10 minutes, the shadow was gone, and I was done with a very loose, semi-abstract piece,” says Sudzina. The artist brings that same quickness of observation and swift execution to her work today. TOOLS OF THE TRADE Sudzina's studio takes up most of an unfinished basement. It houses 13 easels and, surprisingly, she manages to keep them…

Honest. That's how Utah artist Michelle Nixon describes the medium of watercolor. While the nature of it can read as unpredictable, she leans into the possibilities behind that characterization. To her, there's mystery and simplicity at hand during the process. “Watercolor itself is just such a powerful medium, and it can do things that no other medium can,” she says, “but, ultimately, it's just pigment and water on paper.” DEVELOPING STYLE Nixon began her artistic journey as an oil painter but pivoted from that medium in 2017 to accommodate changes in her life. “I specifically chose watercolor because of my kids,” she says. As her family grew, she became concerned about some of the potential hazards of oil and felt compelled to take another approach. In addition to the solvents,…

Asking me to choose my favorite painting location is like asking me to name my favorite memory in life! It's a difficult, almost impossible, choice. As an artist, I've been incredibly fortunate to be able to travel the world, setting up my easel on Parisian street corners, alongside a canal in Venice and a misty rice field in China, among many other amazing places. Just about any spot in the world, given the right light, can become an artist's paradise. I appreciate, though, that I can simply step outside my studio and take a short walk or bike ride and get to work, painting one of the busy streets of Melbourne and its fabulous Victorian-era buildings. Or, I can take a short drive to the boatyards down by the bay…

Some artists think that “technique” is a dirty word, but you can't really move forward in your artistic practice without the effective application of techniques. It's important to learn and experiment with various types so you can express your creative ideas and vision as you intend. Techniques that create texture can be used to add a sense of depth, dimension, physicality and emotion to a work. The amount and quality of texture depends on a variety of factors, including application, pressure, and paint and water density. Spraying, spattering and stenciling are three techniques that create texture and can add more spontaneity to your paintings. The trick, when using any of these techniques, is to do so with intention. Without purpose, they can become visual distractions. SPRAY My current obsession for…

Abel Antonysamy is known the world over for watercolors that feature enchanting color and light—paintings that are minimal in detail but dazzling in effect. The artist is based in Pondicherry, in a locality called White Town, a city in eastern India, situated alongside the Bay of Bengal. It's a part of the world that offers a diverse range of subject matter—from sunlit fields and streetscapes to an open farm market and spectacular dance performances. No matter the subject, Antonysamy is sure to weave visual magic. His inspiration is born out of an intense love for nature as well as ordinary scenes from everyday life. The artist is much like the proverbial child, picking up pebbles along the seashore, while the boundless ocean stretches beside him. Antonysamy's fascination with his surroundings…

Tinted, or toned, watercolor paper may seem fairly straightforward, but it holds within its fibers the power to transcend its physical form. Beyond its transformative allure, when tinted, paper can become a canvas for artistic exploration and experimentation—a path to finding alternative color palettes and an aid in setting a mood and atmosphere in a painting. Personally, I never embark on a plein air painting session without first ensuring that I have some tinted sheets in my supply kit. SETTING THE STAGE Tinted papers are available from several paper manufacturers, and the range of colors is wide, including cream, oatmeal, blue, gray and eggshell, among others. It's also possible to tint your own paper. I tint mine using either acrylic or watercolor washes, depending on the specific atmospheric effect I…