Drawing and Painting Methods, Materials and Technical Appreciation.
There are no hard and fast rules regarding painting styles, but there are traditional methods of working and subject. Drawing and painting methods include: brush, crayon and pencil work, penmanship, scatter-work, stipple, Ben Day medium, line drawings, airbrush, sponge and pad. Present day electronic devices - digital or analogue, photography, montage, tracing-paper and light-box use are all aids to subject preparation and choice - there are no restrictions. The object is to produce a life or still-life picture, either imagined or copied from real-life or reproduction.
All pictures, however produced, are described in language understood by: artists, designers, photographers and architects. Their topographical features relate to every scene. Landscapes to distance, middle and near (middle and foreground) their eye-line and source of light (highlights and shadows). Seascapes to earth’s curvature, figures and faces to profile (facing or looking away) and proportion (features and head height), buildings to elevation (front, side and rear) and aerial views to plans.
An easel is not generally used when painting watercolour pictures - painting the aqueous colour with the stretched paper flat on the board, enables the artists to turn and tip the board to achieve the shape and form required as the paint dries out. Working on a table top, or if outside having the board on one’s knees, is conventional and far more convenient.
Water is used to mix the pigments - to make the pans and tubes of paint, applied in an aqueous form onto dry or damp paper - the range of colours and effects are many. A colour is described using three technical terms: hue (colour), saturation (strength) and whiteness meaning lightness and brightness.
Your vision of colour is the direct result of light reflections and absorptions. The dried colour pigment, both on the surface and, to certain extent, soaked into the fibres of the paper, give a unique quality which is what the artist hopes to achieve.
To reach an informed opinion of what constitutes a superior watercolour painting a visit to picture galleries and museums, to view a selection of prised pictures, needs to be made - to compare styles and subjects. The English countryside painted by Constable, Turner, Ruskin, Seago, Cotman, Bonington, Tunnicliffe and Hilder to name but a few, are a good start - as representative of the craft. Really first class work is rare but once seen, studied and compared easily acknowledged.
The watercolourist accepts that painting on paper is somewhat unpredictable, caused by how much and how fast the paint is adsorbed; it is this unpredictability that is used to advantage – to obtain uniquely delicate shades and shapes that cannot be reproduced by any other medium.
Washes of colour are overlaid to increase density or alter existing colour… the artist applies the aqueous paint… forming a wet shape… as the pool of coloured water begins to soak-in and dry the colour’s pigment is drawn towards the still wet portion… it is this drying process, plus the possible movement of the board, which give the shape a stronger darker edge. When painting a sky it is wise to use diluted colour having previously mixed and saved small amounts of other colours, say, grey, flesh and buff, carefully applied as the paint is drying to give the sky a natural appearance.
In cases where the artist doesn’t want a hard edge he uses a dry brush technique to soften the shape, ‘painting out the brush frequently’ to fade the edge - producing a soft vignette mainly for highlights. In cases of shadow detail the colour can be darkened to give shape and form.
A word about papers and preparation. I find it advisable to stretch dampened paper onto a board, taping, with gummed brown paper tape, the edges. This prevents crinkles, stops pools forming, allows the board to be moved easily, improves the working surface, and simplifies carrying and storing the board. Most of my paintings are on ‘not’ paper, which means it has not been hot pressed, weighing at least 140 grams (gsm). I choose hand-made, alkaline reserve (acid free), 100% cotton (rag paper) paper, for its long-lasting whiteness. It matters not whether it is bought by the roll, block or alburn, choice is personal. I have found that using a number 3 Winsor & Newton, Series 7 brush perfect for the bulk of my work. I have included three panel paintings and a plaster on wall painting to show variation of substrate.
There are a number of pictures in museums and galleries showing fine detail surrounded by ghostly images fading to the edge of the picture, this atmospheric scene has a particular satisfying effect. Normal painting habits record the whole scene or object with as much detail as necessary to fill the frame to give balance and complete the subject. Using the paper to capture high-lights requires a detailed keyline drawing plus patience and dedication. Drawing mistakes, and the use of the wrong colour, can be hidden by over-painting or washing out which defeats the object and intention of ‘aiming for first-time paint application’ and can ruin an otherwise good painting.
Painting and mixing watercolours requires the very best lighting conditions for a perfect match. Naturally viewing picture detail for both highlights and shadows also requires perfect lighting. Daylight viewing conditions which are considered the best lighting conditions dictate north facing windows at midday. British Standard Lighting for general lighting conditions specify BS EN 12464, has been recommended for comfort and performance. This standard is to help artists and galleries. Part 1. Specifies lighting solutions for indoor work. It cannot be stressed too highly that good lighting is essential.
Watercolour pigments are transparent – some colours more so than others, the aim is for the artist to obtain the desired effect using the colour’s transparency in as few brush strokes (over-laying colour) as possible. Poster paints, acrylics and emulsions are opaque – are not traditional watercolours, even though their vehicle is water. If white is used it should be done so sparingly – similarly black. The use of a scraper, India-rubber, sand paper, glue, dry-brush work, draining - tipping the board, damping the paper, all give their own special effect. Gum Arabic gives the colour depth and gloss. Egg tempera makes the painting fast; egg white gives gloss and yoke smoothness. Tempera is a paint mixture normally reserved for medieval wall paintings, icons and panel painting.
The production of paper manufactured in England for watercolour paintings is relatively modern being in the past considered a luxury. It took until the eighteenth century for topographical and technical drawings to interest artists. The drawings for map production and military fortifications prepared the way for civilian architects, interior designers and furniture makers, this in turn introduced the use of wall decorations – papers and pictures of the countryside. Botanists, Veterinarians and Doctors wanted detailed pictures of the human form, nature and wildlife and the artists and book publishers were there to create them.
Prior to the eighteenth century wall decoration was left to oil paintings on canvas, although wall plasters were painted in churches and aristocratic homes. Coloured engravings and etchings provided a less costly decoration for the middle-class. Lithography later filled the gap to provide for the mass market. Water colours began to be accepted by appreciative home owners and publishers by the late 1700s.
It is at this point that watercolour techniques began to be formed. Watercolour artists appreciated the need for an educated and informed drawing and painting technique to produce a close representation of a person or scene that would compete with oil paintings. Overpainting and correcting errors are easy to perform when painting in oils this is not so when painting with watercolours. Accuracy is the byword, to leave white paper - to give the highlights.
Sketching an outline picture with pencil, pen or brush is usually kept to a minimum but can give a good key to the finished result. The whiteness of the paper gives the maximum high-light whilst a mixture of sepia and ultramarine give the deepest shadow. This is the maximum range a watercolour can achieve without resorting to a gloss medium. It is traditional to allow the paper to show through (not filling all the paper with paint) – the flecks of white paper give sparkle and life to the painting.
Some idea of colour terminology and physics of light is helpful. White light from the sun is the result of all colours (electromagnetic variations). Splitting visible light gives us the rainbow - seven colours: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. The wavelength of visible light (electromagnetic variations) ranges roughly between 400 – 700 nanometres. Beyond violet… gamma rays and beyond red… radio waves.
Dividing up and mixing the seven colours into three equal parts gives us three primary additive (filter) colours: red, green and blue. Projecting two of these primary colours on top of each other produces a third colour which is complementary to the third colour missing: r+g=yellow, g+b=cyan, r+b=magenta these three resulting colours are the secondary (subtractive) colours of light used for over-printing colour pictures.
When you study any object its colour and form is reflected, its complementary colour absorbed. There are light sensors called cones are at the back of the retina. We have an equal number of red, green and blue sensors. If you look through coloured stained glass you see only the colour that is being transmitted - its complementary is being absorbed.
At the sides of the retina are sensors called rods, these improve observation of fine detail in poor light conditions. There’s only one part of the retina which has a blind spot, which is at the back of the eye – here nerves carry the sensor’s messages back to the brain.
For instance the colour of a carnation emits red (red and yellow) therefore the flower absorbs blue. If the electrons had issued - given out exactly the same light colour as it absorbs, the flower would have been colourless. If the colour emitted is different from the colour absorbed then the object has colour.
Colour viewed can cause adjacency - one colour affecting another. If you stare at a single colour for a period of time the effect tires the eye’s colour sensors. When you look away your colour vision is impaired - you receive a false reading. This false reading is caused by the other less tired sensors taking over - the result being a contamination by the original colour’s complementary.
The manufacturers of the finest water colour paints attempt to provide a full range of colours which have a spectrometer reading as close to perfect as possible. Unfortunately some colours cannot be accurately provided – pigments are not available to achieve a perfect match particularly cyan and magenta, cyan is weak and magenta not cold enough – too yellow. Yellow pigment contains the nearest to perfection.
Monitor on-screen coloured images are represented by ‘bits’. These bits are presented by tiny units called pixels. Each pixel displays a mixture of the primary colours. An image file consists of colour data, for each pixel and colour - in a grid called the ‘raster’. Each square in the raster represents a pixel holding the exact amount of the primary colours.
Your monitor screen is closely covered with thousands of pixels. Each pixel part of a whole, packed closely together. The monitor has a device called the electron gun which shoots electrons onto a phosphor screen. Electrons are controlled by magnetic deflection which scans the screen at a refresh rate from the top of the screen to the bottom over and over again to build-up the picture.
Conventional pre-printing processes convert colour pictures into halftone images. Each secondary light colour, magenta, cyan and yellow, are over-printed in register, to form the finished picture. Digital images are made up of pixel, conventional prints by halftone. It is clear that a continuous tone image presented by watercolour on paper is sharper – gives greater detail with a brighter result.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so the saying goes. But are all watercolour paintings beautiful? My opinion about artistic beauty or quality, is personal, based upon my knowledge, training, experience, taste and subject viewed. Clever paint application, interesting subject chosen, whether I believe the picture achieves a likeness to a perceived intent, are all part of a beautiful picture for me.
When I was nearing fifteen in 1950, still in The Boy’s Brigade, I left school to be apprenticed for five years as a lithographic artist. The job of a lithographic artist was to produce, by using black greasy chalk and ink, a reproduction of a coloured artwork. My only school accomplishment being the school prize for technical drawing and a rather bedraggled portfolio of paintings… I managed to pass my three month trial period, to be indentured, and invited to be a member of the Trades Union - The Society of Lithographic Artists, Designers, Engravers and Process Workers (SLADE), promising to attend two evening classes, for life drawing and typography, and a day and evening-class course at The London School of Printing - for the five year period.
My first payment was 38/6d for a forty-eight and a half hour week including a Saturday morning, a fortnights paid holiday plus three national holidays. I believe I was one of the last Lithographic Artists to be apprenticed. For multiple reproductions, i.e. ‘step and repeat’ images for tobacco tin labels, Chromoworks Ltd., still used a single image on stone and a hand-press to produce damp-proof transfers to patch up - to form a printing plate, in 1950.
The printing firm produced commercial reproductions - posters and prints. The Lithographic Artists department used drawing techniques and materials similar to that designed and used by inventor Alois Senefelder (1771-1834) in Bavaria in 1798. Initially ‘litho’ was regarded as a fine-art medium extended into commercial field. By 1850, lithography was becoming the premier process where elegance or decorative design called for. The Victorian Printer by Graham Hudson, Shire Publication Ltd. 329.
Since 1950, the printing industry has gone through a revolution – from hand skills to photography – from photography to digital images; large posters, railway platform prints, Lyons tea shop pictures, cigarette cards all forgotten or have become collector’s items. The craft industry has gone through many changes, so too individual preferences for what is fashionable. Fine art has suffered and many hand skills lost. For ten years I lectured, at The London College of Printing and Media Studies, on the physics of colour: artwork preparation, reproduction and appreciation. Later, after retiring, taught watercolour painting.
Having my own studios in England and Spain, and a gallery to sell my work, has given me a view of public tastes in art, their preferences and how social changes dictate new styles. For the last two years my home has been opened to the public during Petworth’s Secret Gardens, giving the public an experience similar to Charleston. My experience of printing has shown me what artworks reproduce well and those that do not. My examples, shown here, are limited, to give a representation of colour, technique and subject.
If you admire a picture which you believe will add beauty and interest to your home the person who produced it is less important. If the object is to provide financial investment then the aim is different. It is best that these two come together - you enjoy the picture and its value is retained.
To receive the highest benefit from a painting you have to understand what it is you are looking at, how it’s produced, how shown, the qualities the painting exhibits and why the painting catches your eye, and hopefully, what it is that makes you feel happy with your choice? As you grow older these qualities change.
As a one-time commercial portrait painter working in-house the person sitting for you is critical paying you for your work. If your work is to be used as an illustration you are given a list of subjects and the form of work the writer/printer requires. All this is not romantic but hard business which you hope will lead to other commissions. Having stacks of unsold pictures propping up your bench is depressing.
All craftsmen have to be aware that there are others who are also in the business of producing similar work. As for who is the best remains personal choice, it is not the person who commands the greatest fee, that is the business of owners of galleries and auctioneers, it is whom his peers admire. Celebrity status and fashion seldom produces lasting admirers. Some of the world’s greatest watercolour painters were women from the Victorian era who painted romantic scenes of their country purely for the joy of painting.
Terence Kearey: Lecturer, Colour Appreciation, LCP, 1985.
The universe (everything that exists) is expanding - its space and time, home to: planets, stars, suns, moons, black holes, galaxies, matter (quarks and leptons), neutrinos (dark and voids), energy, quasars, nebulas, interstellar energy, gas and I have no doubt, a lot more besides.
The sun’s solar activity creates a broad band of vibrations (magnetic radiations). The sun stays hot by atomic fission two light nuclei combine releasing vast amounts of energy that form heavier (by absorption) nuclei inside its core. These nuclear forces create continuous expansion which bursts forth releasing cosmic rays - solar radiation – freeing, by eruption, escaping matter (mass, space, volume).
The core of the sun is so hot it changes hydrogen atoms to helium. This results in a freeing-up of high-energy cosmic rays, that release photons - energy carrying particles, atoms, and molecules, which, in the chaotic multitude, collide, energizing each other, causing further released photons to radiate out. This energy creates fusion, (two light nuclei combine - releasing vast amounts of energy) a reaction which is continuous.
An atom is composed of a nucleus and one or more electrons bound to the nucleus. The nucleus is made of one or more protons and a number of neutrons. The protons have a positive charge and the neutrons no charge at all. The electrons are attracted to the protons by the electromagnetic force and the protons and neutrons are attracted to each other by the nuclear force. There are many possible energy levels electrons can occupy therefore many colours of emitted light.
Nuclear fusion, of a light-element atom, produce longer wavelengths than x-rays, rays that become easily absorbed - able to release their energy. It is this energy that causes stars to shine giving white light, which is electromagnetic energy, in stars and supernovae, the primary process by which new elements are formed. Fusion in stars is a self-sustaining reaction.
