September 27, 2011
A watercolour painting by the American singer-songwriter, Bob Dylan is expected to fetch at least £30,000 when it goes under the hammer at an auction house in Louth, Lincolnshire, England next month. The watercolour is titled “South Dakota Landscape” and was painted in 2008 as part of Bob Dylan’s Drawn Blank Series.
Auctioneer Alastair McPhie-Meiklejon said: “This is one of the first times a painting such as this has come under the hammer in an auction. Art is a great investment – what you are doing here is buying a painting not only by an artist and musician, but by an icon. We are expecting a lot of interest in the picture, not only on the day, but also online with international bidders. It is a well-painted image and the Dylan exhibitions have always attracted critical acclaim. We are very privileged to have a piece like this come to our auction house. It is more than just a picture, it is an appreciating asset. There is already a sizeable growing interest in the painting.”
The auction will be taking place at the Old Woolmart in Kidgate, Louth on October 11th, and the painting is likely to come up for sale sometime in the afternoon. If you are unable to get there in person on the day, the auction house will be taking phone bids.
Bob Dylan’s reputation as a watercolour artist has been growing over the years. The first public exhibition of his work, ‘The Drawn Blank Series’ opened in October 2007 in Chemnitz, Germany and showcased more than 200 watercolours. From September 2010 until April 2011, the Statens Museum in Copenhagen, Denmark exhibited 40 large-scale acrylic paintings by Dylan, entitled ‘The Brazil Series’.
'South Dakota Landscape' which is expected to fetch at least £30,000
In July 2011, a leading contemporary art gallery, Gagosian Gallery in Manhattan announced their representation of Dylan’s paintings and the exhibit, titled ‘The Asia Series’ opened at the Gagosian last week. This is the first exhibition of Dylan’s paintings in New York City, and features works the rock icon created while in Japan, China, Vietnam and South Korea, presumably while he toured those nations earlier this year. According to the Gagosian Gallery, many of Dylan’s works in ‘The Asia Series’ are “firsthand depictions of people, street scenes, architecture and landscape,” while others are “cryptic paintings often of personalities and situations.”
Categories: American Artists, Watercolour News.
Tags: bob dylan exhibitions, bob dylan paintings, watercolor, watercolor painting, watercolour, watercolour painting
September 16, 2011
Winner of the Sunday Times Watercolour Competition 2010
This year’s Sunday Times Watercolour Competition is currently being held at the Mall Galleries in Westminster, London up until this Sunday, 18th September 2011.
Sponsored by Smith & Williamson and The Sunday Times , this prestigious competition, which is now in it’s 24th year, aims to encourage the use of watercolour and water-based media paintings among both amateur and professional artists and there are approximately 100 works being exhibited. The competition is open to all artists born or resident in the UK and there are no age limits for those wishing to enter. The only stipulation is that all the paintings which are entered must have been carried out in the last three years and have not been previously exhibited.
It is one of the only remaining competitions of it’s kind which celebrates the diversity and beauty of the undervalued medium of watercolour and awards a total of £18,000 to artists who demonstrate a high level of skill and creativity, including the introduction this year of the Vintage Classics Prize for Cover Art, generously sponsored by Random House.
Following the exhibition at the Mall Galleries, the paintings will be on display at venues throughout the UK as part of the Smith & Williamson Tour.
And one artist hoping to claim the first prize of £10,000 for his paintings is Philip Ciolina. Unlike most watercolour artists, Ciolina doesn’t look to the landscape for his inspiration, but instead paints a flower, a still life or an interior. His two shortlisted entries are both paintings of roses and were influenced by fragments of poetry from TS Eliot’s Four Quartets. “I don’t illustrate poems,” explains Ciolina. “For me words in poems are like the colours on a palette for a painter. I think painters and poets are the same – they have a big reservoir of images to draw on.”
Well good luck to Philip and all the other entrants and we will bring you details of the winners in our next post.
Categories: Exhibitions, Watercolour Facts.
Tags: 2011 watercolour exhibitions, philip ciolina, sunday times watercolour competition 2011, the mall galleries, watercolor, watercolour
August 7, 2011
We have provided numerous biographies on this site for famous watercolourists from the so-called ‘Golden Age’ of watercolour in Britain (mid-eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth century) but we haven’t really made any mention to the materials they used, and the rise of watercolour painting as a serious medium really progressed hand-in-hand with the improvement and development of it’s materials. So over the next few posts, we are going to give you a brief history of a watercolourist’s materials, starting first with the most important one, the paint:
Paints
Initially, artists ground their own colours from natural pigments, or else bought paint in liquid form. However in the last two decades of the eighteenth century, artists could purchase small, hard cakes of soluble watercolour which they dipped in water and rubbed it onto a suitable receptacle to produce the paint.
From the 1830s, artists could buy moist watercolours in porcelain pans, and an even greater advance arrived in 1846, when moist watercolors in metal tubes was introduced, following the example of tubed oil paint which was first sold in 1841. The machine-ground pigments pioneered by British manufacturers, Winsor & Newton produced fine, homogeneous watercolors that set the international standard.
In 1834, Winsor & Newton introduced their patented zinc oxide pigment “Chinese White”. This superfine, permanent color greatly improved the qualities of gouache. In the first half of the nineteenth century, JMW Turner instituted the practice of applying diluted “Chinese White” as a wash and in the second half of the nineteenth century, Pre-Raphaelite painters used white gouache as a ground upon which to paint in a precise, miniature-like style.
Paintboxes
By the middle of the eighteenth century, British artists regularly sketched outdoors so their materials had to be portable. At first, artists made their own carrying cases – a typical example of which would have been a pocket-sized ivory case with compartments for paints, brushes, a porte-crayon (a drawing instrument that holds pieces of chalk), and compasses. Later on, artists were able to purchase ready-made boxes, the most luxurious of which were constructed of mahogany, fitted with brass hardware and embossed-leather linings and provided porcelain mixing pans, wash bowls, storage tins for chalks or charcoal, trays for brushes, porte-crayons and scrapers, blocks of ink, and of course colours. Less expensive alternatives were also available for the increasing number of amateur artists – the pocket-sized “Shilling colour box” in japanned tin offered pan colours and compartments for mixing, along with separate tin water vessels that clipped to the edge. Commercially available from the 1830s, the colour box became a Victorian bestseller (more than 11 million units sold from 1853 to 1870).
In our next post we will look at the development of paper, brushes and other tools.
Categories: Watercolour Facts.
Tags: history of watercolour materials, history of watercolour paint, watercolor, watercolour
May 1, 2011
The Royal Watercolour Society represents the finest watercolour painting in Britain. Established in 1804, it is the oldest watercolour society in the world, and is second only to the Royal Academy of Art in it’s importance as an art society.
The Society has defined a watercolour to mean “a painting in a water-based medium on a paper-based support”. This allows the work by the Members, who are all elected by their peers, to embrace both established and experimental practices and the Royal Watercolour Society exhibitions reflect these different approaches. These exhibitions are held twice a year, in the spring and autumn, at their home in the Bankside Gallery but they also hold special exhibitions throughout the year, one of which is currently on at the moment in the Royal Albert Hall.
Royal Albert Hall - Winter
“A Year in the Life of the Royal Albert Hall” is the culmination of a year-long partnership between the Royal Watercolour Society and the Royal Albert Hall, where for the first time, Members of the Royal Watercolour Society have been allowed full access to the Royal Albert Hall and have been working backstage and behind the scenes to capture the many events that take place there. The result is a collection of large watercolours which are currently being exhibited along the ground floor corridor and tell the fascinating story of a year in the life of the Hall, from it’s various performances and audiences, to it’s staff, restaurants, and even the boiler room!
The exhibition is taking place from 23rd April to 7th June 2011 and can be viewed either when attending a performance at the Hall or by visiting on one of the following free open days, when Society Members will be available to discuss their work and their experience of painting at the Royal Albert Hall.
Saturday 23rd April, 11am – 3pm
Sunday 15th May, 11am – 3pm
Saturday 21st May, 11am – 3pm
Categories: European Artists, Exhibitions, Watercolour Facts.
Tags: 2011 watercolour exhibitions, royal albert hall, royal watercolour society, watercolor, watercolour
April 21, 2011
It won’t have gone unnoticed that the majority of the biographies we have written on this
site are for men. However, there is one female watercolorist, Georgia O’Keeffe, who is one of the greatest American artists of the 20th century and we thought we should find out a bit more about her life and works.
Georgia O’Keeffe was born in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin in 1887 and she longed to be an artist from an early age. She attended the Art Institute of Chicago between 1905-06 and a year later she went to the Art Students League in New York where she first became aware of modernist art. Even though her student work was well received and she became an award-winning artist at the League, she found it unfulfilling and decided to quit painting to work as a commercial artist.
During the summer of 1915, she began her re-entry into the world of painting when she enrolled at Teachers College, Columbia University, where she stayed until she was offered a teaching position at Columbia College in South Carolina. Between 1916 and 1918, she headed the art department at West Texas State Normal School in Canyon, and it was during this time that she made a handful of charcoal drawings, which she sent to a friend in New York. The friend, Anna Pollitzer, showed them to Alfred Stieglitz, a photographer and gallery owner who was so enthused with O’Keeffe’s work, that he showed them in his “291 Gallery”.
Within two years, Steiglitz had convinced O’Keeffe to move to New York and devote all of her time to painting and six years later the two would marry. While living in New York, O’Keeffe painted some of her most famous work including a series of New York City skyscraper scenes and her botanical paintings which became a signature part of her work.
It was in 1929 that she first visited the Southwest and it was this trip that would alter the course of her life forever. She returned every summer to New Mexico to paint and when her husband died in 1946, she took up permanent residence there. She settled in Abiquiu and produced the landscape and architectural paintings for which she is best known and have come to represent her unique gift.
Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, O’Keeffe’s fame continued to grow throughout the world and in 1970 she was categorised by the Whitney Museum of American Art as one of the most important and influencial American painters. She passed away in March 1986 in Santa Fe, New Mexico at the age of 98 but her work remains a prominent part of both the American and international art world to this day.
"Oriental Poppies"
Categories: American Artists.
Tags: american watercolor artists, famous watercolor artists, georgia o'keeffe biography, watercolor, watercolour
March 9, 2011
John Singer Sargent was an American painter by birth right, although he spent most of
his life in Europe. He was the leading portrait artist of his time and throughout his career, he created over 900 oil paintings and more than 2,000 watercolors.
He was born in Florence, Italy in January 1856 to American parents and spent his early years travelling throughout Europe. In fact, he did not step foot into the States until just before his 21st birthday in order to retain his citizenship.
He received his formal artistic training in France and was therefore influenced greatly by the Impressionist movement. He was initially the ‘darling’ of Paris, however when he was 28 years old, there was a scandal involving one of his paintings, Portrait of Madame X, which received an extremely controversial reception at the Paris Salon of 1884. This ultimately led to Sargent’s failure to build a career as a successful portrait painter in France, and he therefore left Paris and moved to England.
Despite reaching the height of his fame as a portrait artist in England (it was said that to be painted by Sargent was to be painted by the best), he decided to move away from being a portraitist and instead devoted all his time to landscape painting and watercolors.
Sargent painted more than 2,000 watercolors during his career and of many different subjects and landscapes, from the English countryside to Venice to the Middle East and North Africa and Montana, Maine, and Florida in the States. He is particularly noted for the hundreds of watercolors of Venice which he created, many of which were done from the perspective of a gondola. In the Middle East and North Africa, Sargent painted bedouins, fishermen and goatherds and the watercolors he produced in the last decade of his life in Maine and Florida mainly featured fauna, flora, and native people.
He also loved painting his family and friends in watercolors, capturing them relaxing in
brightly lit landscapes or playfully portrayed dressed in Oriental costume.
It is hard to put a label on Sargent as he mastered so many different painting styles. He was an impressionist, a portraitist, a landscape artist and watercolor painter but above all he was simply a great Artist.
Categories: American Artists.
Tags: american watercolor artists, john singer sargent biography, watercolor, watercolour
March 1, 2011
As discussed in our previous post, ‘The history of watercolor painting in the United States’, Winslow Homer is considered to be one of the foremost painters in 19th century 
America and a dominant figure in American art.
He was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1836 and grew up in Cambridge. He had no formal artistic training until he became an apprentice to a lithographer. However he disliked lithography work and instead moved onto become an illustrator. He worked from New York for Harper’s Weekly and between October 1861 and May 1862, he was one of their Civil War illustrators. It was from this period that he gleaned the subject matter that ultimately became some of his most outstanding paintings.
After the Civil War, he traveled and studied in Europe for several years before returning to New York where he lived and worked in the famous Tenth Street Studio Building. Much of his early New York paintings reflected his time in Europe, particularly France and the influence the European Impressionist artists had had over him. It wasn’t until 1873 that he actually began to work with watercolor, but most of his acclaimed works are in fact in that medium.
He stayed in England between 1881 and 1882 in a small fishing village on the North Sea coast and it was here that he began doing scenes which were harsher in tone, such as people struggling heroically in landscape and his work here was almost exclusively in watercolor.
After his trip to England, he returned to the States and settled permanently in the secluded area of Prout’s Neck on the coast of Maine, where he liked the solitude and the similarity of this coastline to that he had experienced in England. At Prout’s Neck, he was able to indulge his love of the sea and the coast, and the peace and serenity of the Maine Coast dominated his later work, in contrast to the horror of the Civil War which was captured in his early work.
Homer never married and in the main lived a highly secluded but content life. He died on September 29, 1910.
Categories: American Artists.
Tags: american watercolor artists, watercolor, watercolour artists, winslow homer biography
February 23, 2011
The earliest watercolor paintings known to have been produced in America were around the 1560′s when artists began to create visual documentation of the “new world” for European explorers to take back to the “old world”.
Mark Catesby was one of the first artists who documented hundreds of different species
of American plant and bird life through his hand-colored prints. Catesby’s work was the forerunner for the popular depictions of American wildlife by John James Audubon who devoted himself to recording this aspect of the North American continent in a style which has been seldom equaled in any other medium.
However, watercolor painting did not become really popular in the United States until the late nineteenth century. Up until this time, American artists had worked in the shadow of their European counterparts but the gradual emergence of skilled and talented artists like Thomas Eakins (1844-1916), Winslow Homer (1836-1910) and James A. M. Whistler (1834-1903) began to challenge European artists.
By 1866, the interest in this medium was so popular that the American Society of Painters in Water Color (now the American Watercolor Society) was founded and for the first time, watercolors were shown in galleries in the United States alongside oil paintings.
Although Americans inherited their techniques from the English artists, they were
interested in experimenting with watercolor in their own way which led to the creation of works which were extremely individual and less rigid than the traditional English work. The American school exploded with an abundance of important figures between the 1870′s and the early twentieth century, including John Singer Sargent (1856-1925), John Marin (1870-1953) and Maurice Prendergast (1859-1924). Since there was no particular style of watercolor, each artist represented a unique approach to the medium.
During the 1940′s, artistic experimentation continued to be a major focus, particularly in the New York art scene and this resulted in the development of Abstract Expressionism. Unfortunately, watercolor therefore began to lose a certain amount of its popularity because they were small and intimate in scale and did not play a role in the huge canvasses of the Abstract Expressionists.
Categories: American Artists, Watercolour Facts.
Tags: american, american watercolor artists, watercolor, watercolour
February 20, 2011
Paul Cezanne was born on 19th January 1839 in Aix-en-Provence, France and was the son
of a wealthy banker. He showed an interest for art at an early age and in 1861 he joined his boyhood companion and fellow artist, Emile Zola in Paris. However, he lasted only 6 months there and returned to Aix-en-Provence to work with his father. This was also a failure and convinced him to try a painter’s life again and he was to spend the next twenty years dividing his time between the Midi and Paris.
Whilst in Paris he met Camille Pissarro and others of the impressionist group, however he remained an outsider as his work was consistently rejected by the official SALON. His early work up until 1870, often referred to as his early ‘romantic period’ was very sombre in nature and used extremely heavy paintwork. Thankfully Cezanne moved on from this approach and thereafter his work can conveniently be divided into three phases.
In the early 1870s, thanks to his association with Pissarro, with whom he often painted, he loosened up his brushwork and began to assimilate the principles of Impressionism through the colour and lighting of his work.
In the late 1870s he entered the phase known as ‘constructive’, whereby his work built up a sense of mass in themselves due to the hatched brushstrokes that he was using and this style was to continue until the early 1890s.
Cezanne moved into his third and final stage when he chose to live as a solitary in Aix
rather than alternating between the south and Paris, and the concentration for his work was just a few basic subjects, such as still lifes of objects found in his studio and views of a nearby landmark, Monte Sainte Victoire which he painted from his studio looking across the valley.
By the time of his death in October 1906, Cezanne’s art had begun to be shown and seen across Europe, and it became a fundamental influence on virtually all advanced art of the early 20th century.
Categories: European Artists, Watercolour Facts.
Tags: french artist, paul cezanne, watercolor, watercolour, watercolour artists
February 15, 2011
We all have friends who see themselves as amateur painters and maybe spend a few
hours at the weekend or whilst they are on holiday working with their watercolours.
For many, it is just a means of unwinding as opposed to actually expressing a part of themselves through their art, but some would like their art to be taken more seriously and that’s why a British TV programme called ‘Watercolour Challenge’ became such a hit.
‘Watercolour Challenge’ was first broadcast in the United Kingdom in 1998 and ran until 2001. There were 4 series in total, each featuring about 50 episodes. It was hosted by actress Hannah Gordon, and the challenge was to find Britain’s best amateur painter and also explore some of the country’s magnificent landscapes along the way.
In each programme, three amateur artists were given a maximum of four hours to paint the same scene/landscape in watercolour and as you can imagine, there were often very different interpretations by each artist. Each week, the programme featured a different guest professional artist and at the end of the alloted time, they would judge the individual paintings and decide on a winner for that round. The winner would then go on to appear in a regional final and then the winners of all the regional finals competed in a grand season finale.
The guest artist also had a segment on the show where they provided tips for the audience on how to improve their painting technique.
The location for each landscape being painted changed for every programme, and a number of different regions in both Great Britain and Ireland were visited throughout the course of the four years.
Even though the television programme is no longer airing, there are still two books
which you can get your hands on relating to the show – ‘Watercolour Challenge: A Complete Guide to Watercolour Painting’ and ‘Watercolour Challenge: Practical Painting Course’.
‘Watercolour Challenge’ has certainly helped to boost the profile of painting in watercolour, widened it’s appeal, and no doubt inspired many more people to paint in this medium who otherwise would never have thought of doing so.
Categories: Watercolour Facts.
Tags: amateur artists, english, watercolor, watercolour, watercolour challenge
February 13, 2011
John Constable is probably regarded as one of the most important English landscape painters of the 19th century.
He was born in 1776 in East Bergholt, a small village in the picturesque county of Suffolk. His father, Golding Constable was a wealthy mill and land owner and John worked in the family business until his early twenties. In fact the intention was for John to take over the business from his father, however he was already beginning to show such a talent for art that his father allowed him to leave Suffolk in 1799 and enroll at the Royal Academy in London. It was here that he met fellow RA student, William Turner with whom he would have a long rivalry over the years.
Despite studying at the academy, John Constable remained largely self-taught because his
love was for landscape painting, and if you wanted to make a name for yourself as an artist in the 1800s, you had to paint portraits or historical pieces which did not interest Constable.
However he did have his first exhibition in London in 1802 and in the same year bought a studio back in Suffolk. He met his future wife, Maria Bricknell in 1809 and they were finally married seven years later after much hostility from Maria’s family who did not think that this penniless artist was good enough for their daughter. They had a very happy marriage and had seven children.
Constable’s wife died from tuberculosis in 1828 and it was such a pity because, aside from the huge loss Constable felt at his wife’s death, he had only just began to taste real success with his spectacular, large-sized canvases. He was the first painter to ditch the classical browns and it was his fresh, atmospheric paintings with their magnificent skies that really began to impress people. In particular he had a lot of success in France, after his work was displayed in a 1824 exhibition of English painters in Paris. His fellow Englishmen were comparatively slow to admire his genius and it wasn’t until 1829 that he finally received membership to the Royal Academy.
John Constable died unexpectedly in the night on 31st March 1837.
Categories: European Artists, Watercolour Facts.
Tags: british artist, john constable, watercolor, watercolour, watercolour artists
February 7, 2011
In our previous post, “A Brief History of Watercolour painting” we made reference to Albrecht Durer and the importance of his work during the European Renaissance period and today we are going to find out a little more about his life and work.
Albrecht Durer was born in 1471 in Nuremberg, Germany and was the son of a goldsmith. However his first artistic influence was probably from his godfather, Anton Koberger, who was a printer and publisher. Koberger’s most famous publication was the Nuremberg Chronicle, which included illustrations in wood and it is thought that Albrecht probably learnt at a very early age about woodcuts and printing while working on this publication with Koberger.
Albrecht was the first artist to create a self-portrait at the tender age of thirteen, using a mirror to draw his likeness and he would go on to produce several more portraits of himself in later years.
Albrecht’s extraordinary talent for drawing was recognised when he was fifteen years old and he became an apprentice to Michael Wolgemut who was an important artist in Nuremberg at the time. Wolgemut’s workshop became famous for creating various works of art but in particular for woodcuts for books.
Durer’s training also involved him travelling and studying abroad. In 1494, he went to Italy, and the inspiration he obtained from the Italian artists led him to return again between 1505-6. In fact the contact he had with Italian painters was clear to see in his work and he began to place greater importance on the colour in his paintings. Durer was a great admirer of Leonardo da Vinci and so intrigued was he by the Italian’s study of the human figure, that he began to apply Leonardo’s proportions to his own figures.
Durer made many works during his lifetime ranging from religious and mythological
scenes, to maps and exotic animals, but more than simply producing works for his own time, Dürer saw his to contribution to the art world as a part of history.
He died on April 6, 1528 in his home town of Nuremberg, Germany and after his death, there followed a period known as the Durer Renaissance as artists across Europe admired and copied his innovative and powerful prints.
Categories: European Artists.
Tags: albrecht durer, german, watercolor, watercolour, watercolour artists
February 4, 2011
Another one of the featured artists at the upcoming watercolour exhibition at Tate
Britain later this month is the English poet & painter, William Blake.
Blake was a reclusive but also a visionary artist of his time, who published and illustrated his own books, most of which had an obscure religious and mythical theme.
He was born in London in 1757 and his parents could only afford to give him basic schooling, though for a short time he was able to attend a drawing school.
Blake worked with his father until his talent for drawing became so obvious that he started an apprenticeship at the age of fourteen with the engraver, James Basire at age 14 and set out to make his living as an engraver.
He married when he was twenty five years of age and his wife, Catherine Boucher worked with him and together they published a book of Blake’s poems and drawings entitled “Songs of Innocence”. Unfortunately this book did not sell much during his lifetime, which meant Blake and his wife struggled close to poverty for most of their lives.
Unfortunately Blake did not have a good head for business, and he preferred to
concentrate on his own subjects rather than taking up his publisher’s requests. However, this led to lack of recognition from the public which in turn caused Blake to suffer from severe depression which he battled with for several years. Even those people close to him believed him to be insane. In fact Blake’s work received far more public acclaim after his death.
Unlike many other painters of his time, Blake liked to work on a small scale, in fact the majority of his engravings are little more than inches in height.
He died in August 1827 and was buried in an unmarked grave at Bunhill Fields, London.
Categories: European Artists, Exhibitions, Watercolour Facts.
Tags: british artist, exhibition, watercolor, watercolour, william blake
February 1, 2011
One of the more modern artists to be displayed at the forthcoming Watercolour
Exhibition at Tate Britain is Tracey Emin.
She has had an eventful career and it is often not her art work which puts her in the public eye (for example, everyone remembers her drunk appearance on a Channel 4 television programme in the UK in the late nighties) but she is probably only second to Damien Hirst in terms of being a so called YBA (Young British Artist) and her watercolours are amongst some of her best work.
Emin was born a twin in Croydon, London in 1963, but was brought up in Margate by her father and step mother. Her father abandoned the family home when she was still young and this lead to a decline in their standard of living which Emin portrays in a number of her works.
She initially studied art in Maidstone before returning to London to complete her MA in painting at the Royal College of Art.
She is now an accomplished artist in many different mediums including needlework, sculpture, drawing, photography but it is her watercolour painting that we are particularly interested in.
Emin’s first display of watercolours was known as the “Berlin Watercolour” series (1998) which she displayed in her Turner Prize exhibition in 1999 and also her New York show ‘Every Part of Me’s Bleeding’ held the same year. These are colourful watercolours which Emin painted whilst in Berlin in 1998 and include 4 portraits of her face and were adapted from Polaroid photos. Each painting in this series is unique but shares the same title “Berlin The Last Week in April 1998″. Emin is quoted as saying that she included the set of Berlin watercolours in the Turner Prize exhibition in response to remarks that there are no paintings submitted for the Turner Prize.
Over the last ten year’s, Emin’s focus on painting has developed and amongst her best
known works are the Purple Virgin (2004), Asleep Alone With Legs Open (2005), The Reincarnation series (2005) and Masturbating (2006), which are all along the same theme of depicting her naked with her legs open.
Categories: European Artists, Exhibitions, Watercolour Facts.
Tags: british artist, exhibition, tate britain, tracey emin, watercolor, watercolour
January 25, 2011
Another artist whose work will be shown at the forthcoming Watercolour exhibition at Tate Britain is Patrick Heron.
Little is probably known about this English painter, writer and designer. He was born in in Leeds, Yorkshire in 1920. His father was a clothes manufacturer and the family moved around a lot in Heron’s early years, eventually settling in Welwyn Garden City where his father founded the firm, Cresta Silks. It was whilst working for Cresta Silks that Heron designed his first silkscreen and in fact he continued to design for his father’s company for almost twenty years.
In 1937, Heron attended the Slade School of Fine Art in London on a part time basis but liked to return to the West Country to visit one of the places he had lived as child, to draw landscapes. He registered as a conscientious objector during the Second World War and worked as an agricultural labourer for three years, before being employed by the Leach Pottery in St Ives.
The Boats and the Iron Ladder
His first one-man exhibition was held at the Redfern Gallery in London in 1947 and included work such as ‘The Gas Stove’ and ‘The Boats and the Iron Ladder’, which showed the direction his painting was moving towards with the unusual use of colour and complex patterning.
After working as art critic for the New English Weekly and The New Statesman, Heron started a teaching job at the London Central School of Arts and Crafts in 1953 where he stayed for 3 years.
In 1959, Heron won the Grand Prize at the second John Moores Liverpool Exhibition at the Walker Art Gallery and surely would even have been successful at anything if he’d tried his luck.
During the Sixties and Seventies, Heron lectured around the world, culminating in his
book, The Shape of Colour in 1978 and a few years later, on a return trip to Sydney, Australia, he produced over fifty paintings while working as Artist in Residence at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.
He continued painting right up until his death in March 1999 at the age of 79 and many of his works can be seen at The Tate Collection, London and at Tate, St Ives, Cornwall.
Categories: European Artists, Exhibitions, Watercolour Facts.
Tags: english, exhibtions, patrick heron, tate britain, watercolor, watercolour
January 20, 2011
We are going to focus over the next few weeks on those artists whose work is to be shown at the forthcoming Watercolour exhibition at Tate Britain (see previous article).
First up is Thomas Girtin, who belongs to the early school of English watercolour artists and in fact has been credited as one of the founders of English watercolor painting. With the exception of a series of paintings completed in Paris just before his death, Girtin’s work is exclusive to English scenery and he played a major part in transforming the reputation of watercolour as a medium.
Girtin was born in London in 1775 and was taught how to draw at a young age by Thomas Malton and then became an apprentice of Edward Dayes, an engraver and topographical watercolourist. His early work was exceptional and it was his topographical and architectural sketches in particular which helped to establish his reputation. In 1794 he had his first exhibition of landscape painting at the London Royal Academy and by 1799, Lady Sutherland and the art collector, Sir George Beaumont were amongst his influential patrons.
He married Mary Ann Borrett, the daughter of a prosperous London Goldsmith, in 1800 and it was also at this time he was working with Turner, copying architectural paintings by Canaletto.
By 1801 he was a regular guest at the country homes of his patrons, such as Mulgrave Castle and Harewood House, and his paintings were commanding substantial fees. However, his health was beginning to fail and as we’ve already cited, in spent the last few months of his life in Paris completing a series of watercolours, “Twenty Views in Paris and its Environs”. His final work was a panorama of London painted in oils, called the “Eidometropolis” which received great acclaim.
Thomas Girtin - Self Portrait - 1799
It was a tragedy when Girtin died in November 1802 at the tender age of 27. His control of this medium was greater than anyone who had come before him, and with his untimely demise, one saw the end of the first phase of English landscape painting. This is particularly brought home by the often quoted remark of J M W Turner, “If Thomas Girtin had lived, I would have starved” and reminds us that whilst he was alive, Girtin was the leader and Turner was the follower.
Categories: European Artists, Exhibitions, Watercolour Facts.
Tags: english, exhibitions, tate britain, thomas girtin, watercolor, watercolour
January 7, 2011
Whilst Joseph Mallord William Turner (or J.M.W. Turner for short) is perhaps more renowned nowadays for his oil paintings, he is also regarded as one of the founders of English watercolour landscape painting. His entire life was devoted to art; he had the rare honour of his work being exhibited when he was still a teenager and unlike many other artists of his time, he was successful throughout his whole career.
He was born in London on April 23rd 1775. His mother died when he was still very young and Turner received very little education apart from the study of art. At the age of thirteen he was making drawings at home and selling them from his father’s barber shop window. He was accepted into the Royal Academy of Art schools in 1789 at the tender age of fourteen and as we have already mentioned, one of his watercolour’s was exhibited in the Summer Exhibition of 1790 after only one year’s study.
By the time he had reached eighteen years of age, he had built up such a fine reputation that he had his own studio and print sellers were keen to buy his work to reproduce.
Though all of his early works were watercolour landscapes, he was painting in oils by 1796 and in 1802, when he was just twenty seven, he became a full member of the Royal Academy.
Strange Sun After Rain
Having been trained academically, Turner seemed to spend the rest of his life developing a painting technique all of his own. Instead of merely recording factually what he saw, he relentlessly studied nature and light and translated scenes into an expression of his own romantic feelings.
As he grew older, Turner became quite an eccentric and allowed no one to watch him while he painted. He continued to hold exhibitions, but was reluctant to sell his paintings; if he was persuaded to sell one, he was known to track it down and repurchase it! Upon his death in 1851 he left nearly 30,000 pieces of work to his country.
Turner’s reputation is as one of the most important British painters of all time and he remains a towering figure of British art, 150 + years after his death and his work is more popular than ever now.
Blue Rigi: Lake of Lucerne
Categories: European Artists.
Tags: english, j. m. w. turner, watercolor, watercolour
December 30, 2010
Watercolour painting utilises various techniques and artists may prefer one style over another or indeed may use different styles within the same painting. We’ll have a look at the most popular.
The Flat Wash
This is the most basic technique. The area to painted is first wetted. Then sufficient
The Flat Wash
pigment should be mixed to cover that area. The surface should be sloping slightly as the pigment is applied in overlapping, horizontal bands from the top of the wash area. You can add variation to this method by grading, this means diluting the pigment with water with each horizontal stroke, resulting in ever lighter strokes.
Glazing
Glazing is a simple technique added to the flat wash. Wait until the flat wash is completely dry then add a thin, transparent layer on top. More glazing can be added to achieve the desired effect.
Dry Brush
Load a brush with pigment and a small amount of water then apply it to blank paper. This produces a slightly raised area useful for highlighting prominent features in the painting.
Wet on Wet
Exactly what it says on the tin, with this method you are just applying pigment to wet areas on the paper for a faded-in, blurry effect. This method can also be applied to painted areas provided the area is dry.
Lifting Off
Lifting off is a technique used to remove previously applied layers, creating a lighter tone on previously darker areas. It’s a simple process, just use a wet brush to dampen the area then blot the unwanted pigment off with a tissue.
Dropping in Colour
This technique is used to create a blurry area on the painting – perhaps giving a rough or
Dropping In
vague impression of an object in the background. Essentially the process involves applying pigment to a wet area of the painting and leaving it to bleed into the colours around it. It can give interesting but unpredictable results.
Categories: Watercolour Facts.
Tags: techniques, watecolour, watercolor
December 25, 2010
When we think of Russian art, we normally think first of the great oil paintings from the last few hundred years. A stroll through The Hermitage in St. Petersburg will show any visitor that oil on canvas is the dominant medium. However Russia also has a rich history of watercolour painting and one such artist is the contemporary Sergei – or Sergey – Andriyaka.
Andriyaka was born in Moscow in 1958. He has worked in various different media, including pottery and and prints, but he is most renowned for his watercolour work. Growing up in the communist era did not affect some aspects of Soviet life and Andriyaka studied art as a student first at the Moscow Surikov Art School and then, following graduation from this facility, at the Moscow State Surikov Art Institute.
Sergei Andriyaka
He held his first private exhibition in 1985 and to date has exhibited more than 200 times around the world. Following graduation, he stayed on to teach painting techniques at the Institute before becoming a senior teacher there in 1985.
The title People’s Painter of Russia, or National Artist of Russia is an honour awarded to Russian citizens distinguished in the field of art. Andriyaka was awarded this title in 2005. His work is currently exhibited in galleries in numerous countries around the world. In 1999 Andriyaka, supported by the city of Moscow, founded the Sergei Andriyaka Watercolour School which currently teaches this medium to around 700 students.
He became noted for developing individual techniques to surmount problems that arose when painting and some of his best work centres around Russia’s smaller towns and Russian nature. Still only 53 years old, in 2001 he became Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Arts and in 2007 became a full member of the same organisation.
Two of Andriyaka’s most notable works.
Categories: Asian Artists, European Artists.
Tags: russian, sergei andriyaka, watercolor, watercolour
December 19, 2010
Some of the most prolific artists work in many different mediums so we cannot say they
Vincent van Gogh, aged 18
are purely watercolour artists or oil artists or whatever else they may specialise in. Vincent van Gogh was one such artist, born on 30th March 1853 and dying tragically young at the age of 37 on 29th July 1890.
Van Gogh had very little critical acclaim during his short lifetime, but following his death his paintings have become some of history’s most sought after works. His oil paintings are his most widely known works, Sunflowers and Night Cafe to name a couple but he also painted some 150 watercolour paintings.
It’s difficult to squeeze a biography of van Gogh into a precis sized article such as this but his early life in Holland was already marked by a kind of melancholy which would later influence much of his work but would also lead to his eventual attempted suicide and subsequent death almost certainly caused by depression.
In his early working early years he travelled to London, The Hague and Paris while working for a firm of art dealers. He was always a religious man and eventually, in 1879 he took work as a missionary in Belgium and it was here he began to sketch scenes and characters from the local community.
After his art became the focal point of his life, he moved to Paris to concentrate on this career but was also drawn to the south of France to where he eventually relocated. The rural scenes and strong colour so familiar in van Gogh’s work were clearly influenced by this region and he remained here largely for the rest of his shirt life.
Vincent van Gogh’s watercolour works grew from his use of the medium to prepare him to paint in oils but gradually his talent in this area also forced these works into becoming masterpieces in their own right. Van Gogh has described in letters to his brother Theo how he himself saw improvements and perfection in these paintings. Theo, a successful art dealer, also financially supported Vincent, allowing him to paint without concern for the necessities of everyday living.
Fishing Boats on the Beach, 1888
Cafe Terrace at Night, 1888
Categories: European Artists.
Tags: vincent van gogh, watercolor, watercolour
December 13, 2010
Most Australian Aboriginal painting focuses on the Dreamtime style of art which most
Albert Namatjira
art lovers and visitors to Australia are familiar with. It comes as a surprise therefore for most people to learn about the existence of genuine pioneer of watercolour from the Australian outback.
His name was Albert Namatjira, he was born on 28th July 1902 near Alice Springs and raised at the Hermannsberg Lutheran Mission. Possibly his Western-style Christian upbringing afforded him the opportunity to experience non-Aboriginal styles of painting and perhaps this influenced him later in is career. Certainly the mitssion was visited by two watercolour painters in 1934 and in then in 1936 one of them returned to paint in the area. Namatjira acted as his guide and in return was shown watercolour techniques.
By then he had already completed his Aboriginal cultural initiations and was familiar with the traditional outback landscapes. Namatjira’s paintings quickly became popular, partly because they appealed to Australia’s Western city dwellers and Namatjira exhibited in Melbourne in 1938 very successfully, quickly followed by others in Sydney and Adelaide.
His success and wealth also brought it’s own problems and under Aboriginal tradition Namatjira was obliged to provide financially for his extended family, which at one point contained around 600 people. In 1957 he was exempted from the Australian governments harsh restrictions on Aboriginals which meant he became able to vote, buy land and buy alcohol. This led to his brief imprisonment after he was found guilty of supplying alcohol to a native by leaving a bottle on his car seat (the bottle was taken and drunk by a fellow artist). A public outcry ensured his incarceration was brief.
He died of heart disease on 8th August 1959, leaving a legacy of some two thousand paintings. His work can be seen in most of Australia’s galleries and he has been the subject of several short films as well as pop songs. He was also featured on a stamp in 1968.
Hermannsberg Mission
Mount Sonder, MacDonnell Ranges
Categories: Australasian Artists.
Tags: aboriginal, albert namatjira, australian, watercolor, watercolour
December 9, 2010
Xu Beihong, also known variously as P’eon Hsu and Hsu Pei-Hung was born in Jitingqiao
Xu Beihong
in the Jiangsu Province of China on the 19th July 1895. He is regarded as one of the foremost artists of various different artistic media, including ink (calligraphy) and oil painting. We are primarily interested though in his ability to paint stunning watercolours.
Watercolour painting began to influence Chinese art in the mid-19th century although it had been introduced there more than 100 years before that. Xu Beihong was initiated into the world of art by his father at the age of six. After working in Shanghai for several years he left to study in Tokyo in 1917 and followed this trip with another to France and Western Europe, learning and studying new techniques before returning to China in 1927. In 1940 Xu had the opportunity to paint some stunning Himalayan scenery when he exhibited in Calcutta and met famous Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore and Mahatma Ghandi.
He blended Western watercolour techniques with Chinese Ink and Calligraphy techniques to create something unique, especially when painting wildlife. Watercolour painting lends itself well to botany and wildlife because of the details possible when using the medium. Xu became an important force in the direction art took in communist China after his release in 1948 of his book “Chinese Art: It’s Past and Future”, and his influence still presides over modern Chinese art. By the time of his death on September 26th 1953 he had become globally renowned and The Xu Beihong Museum in Beijing still honours his memory. Here you can see all his displayed work not just watercolours but oil on canvas and calligraphy among others. In his later years he became President of the Art College of Beiping, President of the Central Academy of Fine Arts and was elected Second Congress of the All-China Federation of Writer and Artists.
Forest Scene
Horse Grooming
Cat
Categories: Asian Artists.
Tags: biography, watercolor, watercolour, xu beihong
