The Artist - UK (2021-03)

52 artistMarch 2021 http://www.painters-online.co.uk

WATERCOLOUR

MATERIALS

l Schmincke Horadam Watercolours:

Indian yellow, quinacridone gold,

orange, madder brown, cobalt

turquoise, ultramarine, helio turquoise,

blue violet

l White gouache

l Brushes: DaVinci Cosmotop Nos. 8 and

4 rounds; Nos 2 and 4 riggers

l Schmincke Watercolour Ground,

Coarse; canvas panel

l 2B pencil

F

or last month’s landscape

element we looked skywards

but this month we are more

down to earth with streams and

rivers. Water is always a very emotive

subject and never more so than when

it is cascading over rocks and boulders,

through woods and forests, and verdant

pastures.

Where I live in the heart of the Wye

Valley we are blessed with all manner of

watercourses, from the humble Garron

Brook to the majestic sylvan River Wye.

In my travels I have come across many

striking and diverse watercourses and

painted many of them.

Watercolour grounds

Watercolour has always been my

first love and I find it the easiest and

Painting streams

and rivers

Barry Herniman continues his four-part series

on elements of the landscape by looking at painting streams

and rivers in watercolour on a textured ground

most satisfying medium to use when

travelling. When I am back in the studio

I tend to expand my repertoire and

explore some of the other exciting

media that are available and use a

variety of different painting supports

such as canvas and board. Supports

for watercolours, however, were

confined to different weights and

surfaces of watercolour paper. Imagine

my excitement when I heard about a

ground that would allow me to paint

watercolours on a variety of different

surfaces.

Schmincke Watercolour Grounds

come in three different surfaces: Fine,

Transparent and the one I have used for

my demonstration, Coarse. They enable

watercolours to be painted on canvas,

painting boards, wood and many

more surfaces. I tend to use the Rough

surface and apply it quite thickly and

randomly with a palette knife (below). I

then have a really rather unique surface

onto which I can paint my watercolours.

Because the surface is rough and

uneven I tend to paint pictures with

loads of texture to get the most out of

the ground.

I hope this article will tempt you to

try out this super ground for yourselves

and take your watercolours to another

level.

DEMONSTRATION Downhill Torrent

Using a palette knife, I apply Schmincke

Watercolour Ground to my chosen support

t STAGE ONE

After coating the canvas board with the ground and allowing it to dry, I drew in the

main elements of the scene with my 2B pencil. I like to keep the drawing down to a

minimum, so I concentrated on the rocks and a few of the main water highlights

There is a cascade on the

East Lyn River just down

from Watersmeet in Exmoor.

I just love this area and have

painted many scenes along this

watercourse.

TA