67 pages

English

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Watercolour for the Absolute Beginner , livre ebook

Search Press - Matthew Palmer

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67 pages

English

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Publié par	Search Press
Date de parution	21 janvier 2014
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781800930476
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	342 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0541€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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Produced in Association with Watercolourfor the Absolute Beginner Matthew Palmer

SEARCH PRESS

Included Full Size Outlines

Matthew Palmer is one of the Society for all Artists' most renowned artists and demonstrators, and his classes and workshops are particularly popular with beginners. He has been painting seriously for over twenty-five years and specialises in landscapes, still life and animals. He has his own studio at his home in Derbyshire and teaches over 150 people per week, as well as running nationwide watercolour workshops and holidays. He has many personal exhibitions, participates in several art shows, writes for magazines and appears regularly on the Painting and Drawing Channel from the SAA (Society for all Artists) at www. thepaintinganddrawingchannel.co.uk, as well as on his own internet-based art show at www.watercolour.tv.

Watercolourfor the Absolute Beginner

DedicationI would like to dedicate this book to my wonderful wife Sue, whom I love with all my heart, and my parents, Ken and Alice.

Watercolourr thfo e Absolute Beginner

MATTHEW PALMER

Search Press

First published in Great Britain 2014

Search Press Limited Wellwood, North Farm Road, Tunbridge Wells, Kent TN2 3DR

Photographs by Paul Bricknell at Search Press Studios

All rights reserved. No part of this book, text, photographs or illustrations may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means by print, photoprint, microfilm, microfiche, photocopier, internet or in any way known or as yet unknown, or stored in a retrieval system, without written permission obtained beforehand from Search Press.

ISBN: 9781844488254

eISBN: 9781800930476

The Publishers and author can accept no responsibility for any consequences arising from the information, advice or instructions given in this publication.

Suppliers If you have difficulty in obtaining any of the materials and equipment mentioned in this book, then please visit the Society for All Artists website: www.saa.co.uk

Alternatively, visit the Search Press website: www.searchpress.com

You are invited to visit the author’s website: www.watercolour.tv

To download the outlines used in this book, go to: www.searchpress.com/watercolour-for-the-absolute-beginner-ebook

Acknowledgements

Thank you first of all to my parents for buying me my first watercolour set. A massive thank you to my wife Sue; without her support and encouragement I would be lost. A big thank you to Richard and Jean and all the team at the SAA, for their massive support and guidance. And finally a big thank you to Search Press, especially Roz and Sophie, without whom this book would not have happened.

Above Old Broken Gate This wonderful little scene just goes to show you can make a painting from almost anything, anywhere.

Page 1 Village in Snow The step-by-step project for this painting is shown on pages 82–89.

Pages 2–3 Lakeside Houses The step-by-step project for this painting is shown on pages 94–101.

Opposite Chatsworth in Snow The snow in this tranquil painting was painted by using a pale blue tocreate shape and form.

Contents Introduction 6 Painting figures 52 Materials 8 Your first watercolour 56 Windmill – step by step 60 Easy drawing for painting 12 Seascape 70 Composition 1672Cornish Seascape – step by step Easy perspective 18 Snow scene 80 Village in Snow – step by step 82 Light & shade 22 Mountains and lakes 92 Colour 26 Lakeside Houses – step by step 94 Waterfalls 104 Watercolour techniques 30 Bluebell Stream – step by step 106 Painting skies 36 All rounder 116 Painting trees 40 Boating Lake – step by step 118 Index 128 Painting water 48

Introduction

I began painting at a very young age. Art was always in my blood and it was a subject I always understood. I could see perspective and how buildings all have the same basic structure, and I could see the shadows in a tree. It was this early artistic ﬂair that really helped me along the path to being a professional artist. I have always thought that children’s minds are like sponges; they absorb information with an almost photographic memory, and because I spent time drawing and sketching objects like trees, I really captured these in my mind. A big thank you to my parents, as they bought me my ﬁrst watercolour set at the age of ten. From then on, I taught myself to paint in watercolour, by trial and error. I just kept trying and trying, until I got it right. I soon developed my own style, which has a good balance of looseness with detail where is counts, drawing the eye to the painting’s focal point. I love to paint landscapes and seascapes, and painting from life is what I really enjoy. Watercolour is very easy to travel with; all you need are a few brushes, paints, a piece of watercolour paper and a bit of inspiration. Another favourite subject of mine is animals; capturing the detail in the hair is wonderful. I also enjoy painting closeup studies of old gates and cottage doorways. My painting has evolved over the years and it still does; I think in every painting you learn something new. I started teaching groups and giving demonstrations in 1997, with weekly classes in my village, Langwith in Derbyshire. This led to more classes and workshop days up and down the UK, and painting holidays soon followed. Before I knew it, I was teaching over 200 artists per week. The Society for All Artists approached me and soon had me ﬁlming watercolour DVDs and working on my ﬁrst TV show:Paint Along with Matthew Palmer. We produced two successful series of this, and now I presentA Splash of Painton the Painting and Drawing Channel (from the Society for All Artists). This book is a collection of my many years’ experience of painting and teaching. It contains all the helpful tips and tricks that I have picked up over the years and is ideal for beginners to watercolour and those who wish to improve. The ﬁrst half of the book works as a watercolour companion, ideal to keep at your side while painting, as it features all the essentials you need to start out on your watercolour journey, or revisit the basics.

Here you will ﬁnd all you need to know about materials, translating a scene on to a piece of watercolour paper, with perspective and composition simply explained; moving on to light and shade, mixing colours, painting skies, ﬁgures, trees and water. The second section is a complete watercolour course, with six simple exercises to follow and paint for yourself, followed by six full watercolour paintings, demonstrated stepbystep. Each of these paintings has its own outline for you to transfer on to watercolour paper and try again and again. It has been a great journey writing this book. I hope it gives you the conﬁdence to get started or develop your skills in watercolour painting.

On a Moonlit Night

This is one of my favourite paintings. I love the atmosphere and the use of light against dark tones.

Materials

There are a huge amount of watercolour materials out there. It can be bafﬂing at ﬁrst and artists who are just starting out tend to buy everything, so they end up with way too many brushes and paints, and paper that is just not right. It is always tempting to buy at the lowest price, but sometimes this can be false economy. A low cost sheet of watercolour paper may go wavy and the paint can dry too fast, so you end up starting the painting again. A good sheet of 100% cotton paper stays wet for long periods, absorbs the paints and will stay ﬂat. This is true with paints and brushes as well. I always tell beginners, ‘Buy the best materials you can afford when starting out, as you will save money in the long run, and the item not to compromise on is the paper.’ Here is my recommended watercolour equipment list, as used throughout this book.

Paints Watercolour paint comes in two forms: pans (little square blocks of hard paint) and tubes of soft watercolour paint. I prefer the tube colour and would recommend them to any artist, as you can control the strength of paint. All you need to do is squirt a blob of paint into a small area of a mixing palette, and simply lift and mix with your brush. Even when a blob of paint from a tube dries, you can still use it, just by adding water. My selection of colours is shown here. Some of the colours are from my own Matthew Palmer Natural Collection, available from the Society for All Artists, but you can use your own alternatives.

Alizarin crimson; a dark red.

Cadmium red; a bright red that is great for poppies.

Viridian hue; a vivid green. The word 'hue' means a colour is almost identical to the original pigment.

Lemon yellow; an opaque, bright yellow.

Burnt sienna; a rusty colour.

Natural grey; my pre-mixed shadow colour made from 60% French ultramarine, 10% alizarin crimson + 30% yellow ochre.

Aureolin; a medium yellow. You could use cadmium yellow.

Intense violet or dioxazine violet; great for bluebell woods and evening skies.

Natural blue; my pre-mixed sky colour, brighter than other blues. You can also use French ultramarine.

Natural yellow; my pre-mixed sandstone colour, good for sandy beaches and stone buildings. You can use yellow ochre.

Opaque white or white gouache; useful for painting instant white sailing boats or correcting mistakes.

Brushes Its easy to buy too many brushes, but over time you will tend to use only a few. Watercolour brushes come in different qualities and shapes. The quality is categorised by the type of hair used.

Kolinsky sable The highest quality brush, made from 100% natural hair. The hair is naturally hollow, which means it holds lots of paint and water. The hair is taken from the tail of a species of weasel. This brush has great water holding capacity, with strong hair and a very pointed tip, but it is expensive. Pure sable Sometimes called red sable; a slightly lower quality version of the Kolinsky sable, taken from a different family of weasel. It has good water holding capacity, has a good pointed tip and is slightly less expensive than a Kolinsky sable. However, it is still quite expensive and not as hard-wearing as Kolinsky sable or synthetic brushes. Synthetic A man-made hair, designed to replicate the natural sable hairs. This type of brush is very robust, and will last a long lime, maintaining the important pointed tip. Synthetic brushes are low in price, but will not hold as much water as sable. Sable and synthetic mixture This is my preferred choice of brush quality, as the natural sable hair holds lots of water and the synthetic hair maintains the point. Because synthetic hair is more robust than sable, the brush tends to last longer. This makes a nice combination of water holding capacity with the robustness of synthetic hair, and these brushes are fairly priced. They will not hold as much paint or water as a sable, but more than fully synthetic brushes. 12mm (½in) flat brush; good for flat The brushes I use are shown here. Size 12 round; areas and for lifting a medium out (see page 33). wash brush for medium areas Size 20 round; and smaller perfect for skies skies. and large areas.

Size 8 round; great for medium areas and for the walls of buildings.

Size 2 rigger or liner; great for fine detail like branches.

Size 6 round; I call this brush the 'worker' as I use it all the time. It is great for small areas and has a good point.

My large, medium and small tree and texture brushes. These are specially designed to make painting leaves easier. They are also great for different textured effects like markings on a stone wall. The brush is made from a natural hair mix, allowing the brush to open up (see the stippling technique on page 42). The angled tip gives artists a natural painting angle, as well as a longer side to the brush, letting you paint natural-looking grasses. These brushes are not essential, but will help you.