Loosen Up Your Watercolours
This illustrated ebook, in the Collins Artist’s Studio series, is aimed at the intermediate painter and explains how to loosen up your watercolours and develop a more spontaneous style of painting.Judi Whitton has specialized in teaching and painting watercolours in a loose style for many years and in this book she shares her experience to enable you to liberate your creativity and achieve more freedom of expression in your work.The book covers many of the traditional watercolour techniques and procedures, such as ‘lost and found’ edges, wet-into-wet, simplification and decisive brushstrokes, but all with an emphasis on maintaining spontaneity and a lively style. In addition, there are helpful sections on using colour creatively, planning your paintings, painting vignettes – a much overlooked technique – and working outdoors. A number of paintings by other well-known watercolourists, such as John Yardley, Charles Reid and John Palmer, are also included to show different styles of painting in a loose way.Practical exercises and projects, step-by-step demonstrations, studio tips and discussions on a variety of issues combine to make this an ideal book for all those artists who are looking to take the next step and develop their painting with confidence.
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Collins Artist's Studio
Loosen up your
Watercolours
Judi Whitton
Collins, an imprint of
HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by Collins 2005
Copyright © Judi Whitton, 2005
Editor: Diana Vowles
Photographer: Howard Gimber
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Judi Whitton asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication.
Source ISBN 9780007183241
Ebook Edition © JANUARY 2015 ISBN: 9780008108519
Version: 2015-01-05
To the Lewis family
Contents
Judi at Painswick
John Yardley
35.5 Ã 25 cm (14 Ã 10 in)
I have known Judi Whitton for almost 15 years now and have seen her painting develop from a fairly traditional style of watercolour into her current lively and vibrant productions. In the way that many Scottish painters are described as âColouristsâ, Judi can truly be said to be a watercolourist. Her palette combines depth and subtlety of colour, while the free brushstrokes â almost abstractions â are based on sound drawing ability.
Technical knowledge, composition and great originality are here combined to promote maximum enthusiasm in the student. Admitting to a personal admiration for Judiâs work, I can safely recommend this rewarding book not only to those wishing to âloosen upâ but also to those wishing for something different in their painting.
John Yardley
Tulips in Blue Jug
40 Ã 50 cm (15>3/>4 Ã 19>3/>4 in)
Itâs a funny business being a painter. Certain skills, such as loosening up, sound easy but in practice are difficult to achieve. Many painters yearn to free up their style but often the only advice they can find is, âJust free up a bit and relax.â Without more specific guidance it is hard to know how to progress, so the aim of this book is to provide solutions for anyone who wants to loosen up their painting â be it a little or a lot â and is at a loss as to how to set about it.
Learning to paint free, seemingly effortless watercolours where the paint appears to dribble off the paper with a carefree simplicity is a straightforward procedure if you tackle it systematically; while watercolour is a bit unpredictable at times, it is nevertheless quite logical. We are all creative, we all have talent and we can all paint more loosely. The ability is in us somewhere and with a little practice, encouragement and guidance it can be found and developed.
About this book
This book, designed for artists already possessed of a little experience, introduces a methodical approach to loosening up watercolour paintings which is based on the principle that anyone can achieve this and still maintain his or her personal identity. I am delighted to include paintings by John Yardley, Charles Reid and John Palmer as some examples of lovely loose flowing watercolours in styles that are different from my own.
If you have ever wondered how to stop yourself âfilling inâ everything, how to keep light and airiness flooding into your pictures, how to decide about the amount of detail to include or how to recognize when your painting is finished, there is help at hand within these pages. You will find guided practical work, Studio Tips and Explore Further sections, together with Food for Thought suggestions where some alternative views are introduced. There are a few surprises, too; for example, producing a spontaneous painting can involve slow and painstaking deliberations. Sometimes it is even necessary to tighten up and analyse your subject before you can reach your aim of loosening up.
The techniques of watercolour painting are more accessible than the philosophy, attitude, perception and style of a watercolour painter. Much of this book is dedicated to the more difficult and even elusive ways of thinking that a loose painter employs, together with ideas to develop your creativity, for these are infinitely more relevant to painting in a loose style than the technical aspects. I hope that within these pages you find plenty to help you to achieve a greater level of freedom, spontaneity and originality in your own individual style of painting.
