Watercolourist KATE OSBORNE shows why working without
a preparatory sketch can be liberating and result in a more
spontaneous approachtocolour andmarkmaking“No sketch”
painting
MASTERCLASSKate’s materials
•Watercolours
Cadmium Yellow, Green Gold,
Opera Rose, Perylene Green
and Permanent White
(gouache), all Winsor &
Newton; Transparent Pyrrol
Orange, Ultramarine Blue and
Cerulean Blue, all Daniel
Smith; Raw Umber, Daler-
Rowney; Green, St Petersburg
White Nights
•Brushes
Chinese brushes, various
sizes; Daler-Rowney flat wash
brushes, sizes 1/4”, 1/8” and
1”; ProArte Prolene Series 9A
Sword Liner, medium
•Paper
Saunders Waterford 640gsm
Rough watercolour paper,
51x36cm
•Inks
Derwent Inktense Pens and
Blocks, various colours
•Water spray bottleF
or this masterclass, I painted
an assortment of flowers and
vegetation from the garden,
including alliums, ivy and
epimediums, which I love for their
slightly other-worldly air. It was
mostly an arrangement in green, and
I wanted to show what you can do
with ready-made greens, modified
with blues and yellows. I used three
greens – Green Gold, Perylene Green
and St Petersburg’s Green – and
modified them by dropping in
Cadmium Yellow and Cerulean Blue.
I often leave out the background
for the sake of being more
expressive with the main subject, soI decided to introduce blue into the
vase instead. I’ve also introduced
yellow by adding a couple of narcissi
at the centre to give it a focus. I have
played very fast and loose with the
various elements in general, not
worrying about being too descriptive.
This piece was mostly watercolour,
but I’m less of a purist these days
and like introducing other media into
it, including Inktense blocks and
pens. I also worked without
a preparatory pencil drawing, a
method I initially developed to stop
myself “colouring in” and to allow for
more spontaneous mark making.
http://www.kateosborneart.com- Start at the top
I start the painting on the top left-hand side.
I’m using Green Gold and Green, mixed into
large puddles on the palette, with a large
Chinese brush. I painted onto dry paper and
sometimes used the side of the brush to
create broken textures – this technique
works much better on the rough paper too.- Drop in pigment
I moved across the page, working swiftly and
keeping the leading edge wet, adding foliage
in Green Gold and Green, and narcissi in
Cadmium Yellow. While this initial layer was
still wet, I touched a loaded brush to the
wet areas where I wanted to add more tone,
and added clean water from a bottle where
I wanted to lighten an area. I was aiming to
get some tonal and textural variation into
this early stage, as it creates a dynamic
underlayer and will underpin the later stages.- Work with the water
I described the negative shape of the vase by
painting the blue background with a mix of
Ultramarine and Cerulean blues, using a 1”
flat brush. I then soften the hard edge of the
vase using a water sprayer – a hairdresser’s
spray bottle works well for this.
I’ve also added more Cadmium Yellow to
the centre of the arrangement and, as the
paint continued to dry out a little, I added
more water and more (wet) pigment to the
areas I wanted to lighten or darken.ORIGINAL PHOTO