Watercolours For Beginners Ebook 157 Pages [PDF]

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Watercolours for Beginners

A complete step by step guide by Yorkshire Artist Martin Stephenson Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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For Julie Howland Aileen & Norman Stephenson

Special thanks to Jane and Mike Lynham, for ‗keeping me on track‘, fed and solvent ! To Rosie McKenzie. For her unbending love, loyalty and devotion, in the face of extreme adversity. For their technical help, (and logs in the depths of Winter), special thanks to Graham (who did the book cover design), and Karen Wales, who together, are also involved in the distribution of my book. And to all the other residents, of Cherkovo, in Bulgaria, both English and Bulgarian. And finally, to my long suffering kids Ashley, Russell, Kate & Connor and Newest addition Molly Mae.

This book is for you all.

Watercolours for Beginners

Martin Stephenson Stevo – www.artstevo.com Thanks, in no small way should go to the people and country of Bulgaria ‘You both inspired me so much’ Thanks to all the owners of the original works for allowing me reproduce them for the purposes of this publication. All the text and images are subject to copyright law and unlawful reproduction, photocopying, either by way of storage or retrieval electronic systems or manually without the written prior permission of the owner, are prohibited. As the artist, I retain the intellectual rights of all of my original art work. Photographs of them, are for purposes of promotion and marketing only. Original works are just that, and will not be reproduced in print form at any time without prior negotiation with the owners.

THIS E-BOOK IS FOR YOUR PERSONAL USE ONLY, AND IS NOT FOR RE-DISTRIBUTION, EITHER PHYSICALLY OR ELECTRONICALLY. IF YOU KNOW SOMEONE WHO WANTS A COPY PLEASE LET ME KNOW

Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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INDEX Introduction – About this Book 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36.

What you do and don’t need to know Watercolour—The Theory Myths and Golden Rules to get you started When and where to paint Painting Indoors or Out ? Painting from Photographs Subject Matter Materials Getting Started LESSON 1—ALL ABOUT LIGHT LESSON 2—LOOKING,SEEING AND PAINTING SIMPLE TONES LESSON 3—REALLY LOOKING AND DRAWING WHAT YOU SEE LESSON 4—COMPOSITION LESSON 5—COUNTER-CHANGE LESSON 6—RECESSION LESSON 7—COLOUR MIXING LESSON 8—WHICH BRUSH TO USE FOR WHAT LESSON 9– THE 3 MAIN TECHNIQUES LESSON 10-OTHER TECHNIQUES & NEAT TRICKS LESSON 11-AVOIDING MUD & KEEPING IT CLEAN AND FRESH LESSON 12-PAINTING SKIES LESSON 13-PAINTING LAND LESSON 14-PAINTING WATER & REFLECTIONS LESSON 15-PAINTING TREES, BUSHES & GRASSES LESSON 16-PAINTING BUILDINGS LESSON 17-PAINTING PEOPLE, ANIMALS, BIRDS & BOATS LESSON 18-PAINTING STILL LIFE & FLOWERS LESSON 19-PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER THE PAINTING PROCESS LESSON 20-FINDING YOUR OWN STYLE Presentation Marketing The Paintings The Drawings The Pen and Inks And Finally—Further Help and Support Acknowledgements

Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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Introduction—About this Book Welcome, and thank-you for buying my new book, is the first, in a series of books, I will be producing This book is in PDF format, and has been designed Reader. For the FREE latest version please click on

‘Watercolours for Beginners’, which in this way. to be read on Adobe PDF Acrobat this link.

As a special bonus, if you register your copy, at www.artstevo.com ,you will be provided with a password, to enable you to access the Private Students page, of my website, where you’ll find lots of extra goodies to accompany this course. By the way of an Introduction, let me say, at the outset, that I am a self taught artist, though have I have attended the odd frustrating evening class, and Art Club (am I anti-social, or do most people want to talk about painting, rather than doing it at these places) ? I now recognize this phenomenon as ‘the fear factor’) ? Apart from these dabbles in tuition, I have never studied Art formally. I am an Art lover, of most mediums and styles, and continue to be influenced by those around me. You can see a full list of my favourite artists, and further reading on my website. I moved permanently to Bulgaria in 2008, having painted and drawn all of my life, as a hobby in England, and decided to try and fulfil my life long ambition, to become a Landscape Watercolour Artist in my newly adopted Country, where I found plenty of inspiration all around me. During my life here since then, firstly I taught one of my neighbours to paint, and also did live street demonstrations at the coast, at Galleries, and for individuals and classes of children, during my first ever Exhibition in Karnobat, in 2009. These demo’s were great fun, and gave me the confidence to paint in public. Occasionally they went wrong, which was also was a great lesson in humility too ! My activities, my website, followed by my youtube videos, then the founding of my own Art Club ‘Sryada’ (which is Bulgarian for Wednesday), have all now culminated in this, my first ‘virtual’ book, and is based on my face to face classes, tuition and Art Holidays, in Bulgaria.

LIVE DEMO AT A BULGARIAN STREET MARKET

When teaching, is was noticeable that some of my methods were met with gasps, and comments like ‘that’s so easy’ ‘you make it look so easy’ or more commonly, ‘no-one has ever explained that to me’, ‘now I understand’ that I realised that there are so many myths surrounding watercolour painting, that some very talented people like you, are put off by them all, before they even pick up a brush. In addition if you are anything like me, (and Yorkshire people have a reputation for being, let’s say frugal, to put it kindly), so standing in front of a relatively expensive piece of virgin white paper, can be very intimidating in itself. That’s why you may notice that I stand up to paint (only sitting down for the finest details usually at the end of a painting), and also why I only own one fine brush, usually only used to sign my paintings ! I always use the biggest brushes I can, and when I started I painted on scrap paper, and used the back of unused wallpaper, and lining paper, so it would be less intimidating ! Try it at home it’s a very liberating experience !

Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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Introduction Continued I also started, as many other people do, by ‗fiddling‘ ! That‘s painting and drawing with such detail and with very little looseness, fluidity or apparent enjoyment. I even took my own fiddling to the extreme with very fine mapping pens, though through this, I did find work, as a part time magazine Illustrator, in Yorkshire.

‗Fiddling‘ don‘t get much fiddlier than this !

If you find that some, or all of these statements are true, then the good news is, that you have come to the right place, and you are pretty much where I was, when I first taught myself Watercolours. Incidentally for the observant out there, I realise that there are several spellings of the word watercolour/watercolor, and have stuck to my native tongues version, for this book, though I use all versions elsewhere, like on my website for example, as it gets me up the Google rankings, whatever they are ! I won‘t complicate matters further by calling it Aquarelle, as they do in Bulgaria and most parts of Europe.

Unless you are painting next to your pc (bearing in mind that water and computers aren't usually the best of friends), you may find it useful to print off the pages, and put in a binder, to use for reference. Whilst my own personal preference for subject matter is landscapes, the techniques are transferable to whatever you want to paint, be it portraits, floral painting, still life, whatever ‗floats your boat‘ as they say ! So please ‗settle in‘, and enjoy your own personal Watercolour Journey. I hope you get as much pleasure from your new e-book as I got from producing it, and all the paintings it includes, some of which were done especially for this publication. Above all relax, and enjoy the ride…… this is supposed to be fun !

Martin Stephenson - Stevo Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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1.

WHAT YOU DO AND DON’T NEED TO KNOW ! And I realise that this page will shock and astound most people especially fellow artists, and those in the know.

WHAT YOU DO NEED TO KNOW 

Above all else, you DO need the ability to ‘really look’ at subjects, and to draw them onto paper. The subject of ‘really looking’ is covered in it’s own chapter.

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It will help if you can see a picture in your mind, when you look at something.

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It will help, if you have had some experience with any kind of camera, and are used to framing pictures in a viewfinder, ( hopefully what you will learn from this course, will also make you a better photographer too )!

WHAT YOU DON’T NEED TO KNOW Though if you decide to delve deeper into the following is up to you. 

BUT YOU DON’T NEED TO UNDERSTAND THE COLOUR WHEEL, PERSPECTIVE, EYE LEVELS, OR EVEN VANISHING POINTS

YOU JUST NEED THE ABILITY TO BE ABLE TO COPY WHAT YOU SEE REASONABLY ACCURATELY, THAT’S ALL ! DO I HEAR SIGHS OF RELIEF NOW….. YES I THOUGHT SO IT INTIMIDATES THE HELL OUT OF ME TOO ! ALL YOU NEED IS THAT ABILITY TO SEE AND COPY & THAT’S ALL ! If you have ‘really looked’ and copied what you have seen, how can the perspective, the vanishing points, and eye levels be wrong, you just copied what you saw ?

‘The Old School Doors, , Cherkovo’ Bulgaria 2009 Now in Private Collection

An example of just looking and copying perspective

Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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Watercolour—The Theory ‘I realise your about to skip this bit—but please don’t’ !

THE ‘GOLDEN’ TIME EXPLAINED One of the many beauties of Watercolour Painting is the immediacy of the whole process. Unlike all the other painting mediums, it‘s quite realistic to be able to paint a picture and have it framed and on the wall the same morning or afternoon, and in fact I have. This is because the carrier of the pigment (the paint) is water, so the picture can be finished in the time it takes for the water to evaporate, and dry on the paper. I would advise you to check what this time is, in your painting location, because ‗your Golden Time‘ will depend on many factors, including the thickness of the paper you use, how wet you work, the temperature, and even the time of day or year. ‗THE GOLDEN TIME‘ And usually it‘s literally a few minutes, is the time when the paint is fluid on the paper before it starts drying. DURING THIS TIME AND THIS TIME ONLY IT‘S POSSIBLE TO ADD OTHER COLOURS, AND GENERALLY MANIPULATE THE PAINT. ONCE THE PAINT LOSES IT‘S SHEEN, (AND YOU CAN CHECK THIS BY LOOKING AT IT AGAINST THE LIGHT) ONCE THIS HAPPENS, YOU MUST STOP PAINTING IMMEDIATELY !!! You can then, only carry on painting the next part, when this first part dries, naturally or otherwise. By contrast you can see that this wet in wet Watercolour of mine is built up, using delicate layers of transparent washes. The lighter parts of the trees and roof being only slightly tinted and almost pure unpainted paper.

Wet in Wet Misty Field and Tree Study Bulgaria 2009—Now in Private Collection

WATERCOLOURS The theory of Watercolour painting is that your light areas are pre-worked out, and are unpainted or lightly tinted, using see through paint and thin transparent washes. It’s exactly this theory that scares most budding Watercolourists off, to start with, and this perceived apparent inflexibility of the medium itself. But if you read overleaf you’ll see that most of this perception isn’t true at all, and is, in fact myth !

As you can see with this half finished acrylic painting it‘s built up in layers, and in places applied with a palette knife

OILS AND ACRYLICS With conventional painting mediums, like oils or acrylics you paint dark to light and paint layer upon layer with solid opaque (none see through) paint. So frankly, you can cover up mistakes, and decide to change tones, darks and highlights at anytime. Even whole paintings can be painted over, with another painting.

Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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Myths & Golden Rules

MYTHS DISPELLED Lets start with these, and hopefully you will see that a lot of the ‘fear factor’ associated with starting watercolour painting, is actually myth. 

‘You only have one chance to get it right with Watercolours’ - Myth

Because of the medium of watercolour, and the fact that water is mixed with paint, means that it is also water soluble. So it is entirely possible to remove a whole section of a painting, and even the whole painting itself, leaving only a faint mark. I call it the ‘sink treatment’ which involves soaking the whole painting in the sink, or bath, and gently removing the painting or section with a course paint brush, once the painting is softened. When I painted this watercolour of a famous Fishing College below, I wanted to start with a tint on the paper, to give it a stormy atmosphere. I got quite some way through the painting, and then didn't like the overall effect I was getting, so it got ‘the sink treatment’ ! The resulting tinted paper, accidentally gave the painting it’s subtle tones, which have been much admired.

Sozopol Fishing College—Bulgaria 2009 Original in Private Collection This first painting of this scene was painted 1/8th sheet size, as an initial study, for a half sheet painting sold at my Exhibition and now in a Private Collection. In my view the new version (inset) never captured the atmosphere of the original after the sink treatment !

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‘It’s impossible to cover up your mistakes with Watercolours’ - Myth

Because of the very nature of the medium, explained above, if acted upon quickly most errors with the painting process, can be covered up, or removed altogether. There is an example of a glaring potential disaster, on the next page, and I think most people would be hard pressed to spot it. Before you read the associated text with it overleaf, cover it up, and just look at the painting and see if you can spot it ? Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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Myths & Golden Rules

MYTHS DISPELLED Continued 

‘It’s impossible to cover up your mistakes’ - Myth Can you spot the disaster in this picture ? Read below for the answer

View over Karnobat—Bulgaria 2009 Original now in Private Collection

If I tell you that I renamed the picture ‘The eye of an Eagle’ that may be a clue ! Right at the very end of this painting, and preparing for my first ever Exhibition, I was painting the foreground, right hand side, bare bushes. I was using either a stick, or dip pen, in very dark paint, when it flicked a drop of paint into the sky area ! So I turned it into a soaring Bird of Prey ! If you splash onto your painting, it is also possible to lift it out, with a fairly dry, but moist brush, which mops up the paint. A subsequent application with clean water, will make it almost impossible to spot. This technique is called ‘lifting or mopping out’ and is discussed in detail later. 

‘Watercolours don’t last’ - Myth

Most quality ‘Artist Quality’ paints, whether in tubes, or pans (blocks), are guaranteed for 100 years and all the great Masters works are still in tact. Obviously it would be prudent, not to hang any painting in direct sunlight, though in my experience, the mounts fade quite quickly, but the paintings stay fresh.

Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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Myths and Golden Rules

I hope you agree, that some of that ‘myth busting’ was surprising, and may allay some of your fears. I also hope that the Golden Rules below, will show you that, with just a few guidelines, it will give you confidence not to waste that precious paper eventually! There are other painting guidelines later on, but try these for starters, and ‘get loose’ ! GOLDEN RULES 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Start by painting on cheap paper Paint with big brushes Use a limited palette Paint standing up Paint simple subjects

You may notice that I avoid giving you lists of specific colours, like lower down here.

Colour comes later, and besides, if you havn't got the colour I suggest it only gives you a reason not to try ! SO GO ON, BE BRAVE !

‘Snow scene Karnobat’ Bulgaria 2009 Now in Private Collection

Turn to page 41 to have a look at how easy this is to paint, in about 20 minutes, or watch it on youtube first, and keep stopping the video. This way you can work at your own pace. The important thing is to have a go !

This is a simple snow scene, originally painted small for a Christmas Card, and uses a limited ‘Wintery palette’ of just five colours Black, Blue, Brown, Tan and Red, and is a great one to start with. I realise that nothing gives as much encouragement to a beginner, as seeing a finished painting, and to this end I have posted this tutorial on youtube So if you have access to the Internet click on the blue link and watch it now. It’s in 3 parts and includes my commentary, but don’t let that put you off watching it ! The great thing about snow scenes, is that most of the paper is left white, and will help you appreciate the order in which to paint things too. If you feel it’s too early to try a painting, and would prefer to build up to that later , that’s fine too, and a good place to start is in section 12 ‘All about Light’ where you will also find a two-part tutorial, on you tube, about painting an orange ! There are other rules relating to the actual painting process which we will cover later, one of the most important of which, is how to keep your paintings fresh clean and mud free ! But more on mud later …... Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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When and where to paint ?

When and where to paint, really has much to do with your personal circumstances, on a practical level, as it does to do with any artistic considerations. All I can do here, is give you pointers, as to what you’ll need, and what works for me, in my circumstances. It goes without saying, that every artist dreams of having a studio, with perfect light, heating, ventilation, water supply and with everything to hand and walls adorned in one’s own art work, for all the world to see. And I am no exception.

‘My Proposed New Studio’ Artists Impression

‘And My Existing Studio in The Kitchen’

Though the reality of my situation is somewhat different. I use my kitchen table, and because I paint full-time, my stuff dominates the kitchen, and stays there, though I know this arrangement may not be practical for you. You may have to fit around family, partners , pets and work. All I would say, is that if you can leave work out, somewhere, it would be better. Many times, I have looked at work with a fresh eye after a goods nights sleep, and made changes. Living and working in a hot country, like Bulgaria, suits me (especially in Summer). To be able to just get up as soon as it’s light and paint is a joy. If I have been considering a subject, as is normal, I leave everything ready just to get up and paint. This room, that doubles as my makeshift studio, has two East and South windows and gives me perfect light by which to paint. Especially appreciated in the early morning, before the direct sun comes around. It’s also adjacent to my sink, water supply and a rubbish bin, all of which is important, though not imperative. I also have a tendency to dance around whilst stood up painting, and listening to loud music, which seems to help my creativity, and I know amuses my foreign neighbours !

My makeshift Studio on my Kitchen Table

Oh well, eccentric Englishmen are nothing new I suppose ! Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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Painting Indoors or out ?

This is a very tricky subject, and one with very strong plusses, and minuses, on both sides. I love to paint outdoors (and in fact love being outdoors generally). Some of the places I have turned up, and painted live in Bulgaria !

I think that demonstrating live is pure exhilaration, and is in the realms of the theatrical. Don’t get me wrong, having to think on your feet, in less than ideal circumstances, say in poor light conditions (painting at night, say under street lights) is the thing of nightmares, for an average artist, and certainly gets both the adrenalin, and the brain cells firing on all cylinders, and working on overload. For those demo’s I have paired down my kit to a bare minimum, and everything I need fits into my very small and battered old briefcase.

In theory, painting outdoors is great. Find your view, set up your easel, and your off ! My own experiences are a little different. Firstly one is confronted by the amount of equipment one needs for such a ‘field trip’. Easels, boards, tackle boxes, water containers and the like. And that’s before you've considered lunch and cold beers ! Not small considerations when on Public Transport, in a hot country . For me personally, indoors is best. Sure, experience the scene, remember the atmosphere sketch it, feel it, smell it, and photograph it, in great detail. Don’t get me wrong there is an immediacy and freshness about ‘plein air’ as they trendily call it these days. The advantages of painting outdoors, are, in my humble opinion, far outweighed by the disadvantages. Paper too white, weather too hot, too cold, too windy, too sunny, too dull, rain, and that’s all before we start on the attentions of well meaning humans. Then there are the unwelcome attention of animals, insects and birds, and their droppings ! So for me studio painting is my preference. Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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Painting Indoors or Out ? Continued

Another consideration, when deciding to paint outdoors or indoors, is the quality of light available. It is said ‘never to paint under artificial light’ and I am a great believer in that. I would never hope to achieve a satisfactory painting, painted other than in natural light. All that said, I did however, stumble across a painting technique that I devised, whilst painting outside, in low light conditions, and in fact it will appear again later on, as it’s a great way to start painting. Without giving too much away now, I call it my tonal paintings and it’s a fantastic way of starting to paint, because it makes you concentrate on tone, rather than getting involved too early, in colour representation. The circumstances that lead me to this improvisation, were that I was painting outside, and the light was fading, but I wanted to continue, as the tourist were unexpectedly, heading out into the streets. So I started painting in a sepia kind of way, as I found it easier to judge the scenes, and tones, in the fading light. Surprisingly, they are very easy to do, and turned out to be quite commercial too. So I re-create some of them for you, below.

Examples of Sepia type ‘Tonal Paintings’

‘Dusk at Sozopol Fishing College’ Bulgaria 2009 ALL NOW IN PRIVATE COLLECTIONS Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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Painting from Photographs

Photographs, are a great way to record a scene and all the details, but it can never take the place of a sketch, done in situ. It’s possible to record a massive amount of information on a sketch, particularly about mood, which is always lost, in all but the very best photography. With a photograph, you are recording what’s there, but with a sketch it’s possible to use artistic license to change things, to make a better, or more harmonious paintings. We will be covering things like composition thoroughly, in a later section. EXAMPLE—’TRABBI FALLEN ICON TO CHICKEN SHACK’ In this example, of an abandoned Trabant car in our village, the chickens were using it as a shelter, but they were getting in through the window on the other side of the car. I thought it would make a better picture if they were going in through the door, on this side of the car. So I had to imagine, what the door would look like, if it was open. Also if the door was going to be open, I also needed to sketch the layout of the dashboard for accuracy. What initially attracted me to the scene, was that the car looked like it had been speared with the telegraph pole, but I decided to move that, as I wanted the emphasis to be on the novelty, of the car being used for the chickens.

And the final painting, with all it‘s many ‗modifications‘ all in the name of a better picture, using very extensive artistic licence !

The Original Photograph

I also ‘moved’ the car to a better part of the village, removed the tyres, and included a number plate from another ‘Trabbi’ in the village. I hope you agree that this example shows what can be done with ‘artistic licence’ and maybe how photographs can be useful all the same. The original painting held in the fond memory of most Bulgarians that see it ,surprisingly remains unsold. The painting was used on the front cover of The Wartburg and Trabant owners Club Magazine called ‘Knight Rider’ in the U.K. in December 2009 Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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Painting from Photographs Continued

In this second example of painting from photographs, of the oldest house in our Village (originally an ale house), I loved its decaying pink plaster walls, and went home with my sketch, and immediately experimented with colour, to try and accurately portray it. Though not lived in, the owners still use the garden, to grow their annual crops, tend it every weekend, and return in The Autumn for the harvest. This type of subject, with it’s faded, though still elegant façade, remains one of my favourite types of material, found in abundance in Bulgaria. I again used Artistic License on the perspective of the building, to make it look slightly more skew. It shows how a combination of sketch and study photographs can be combined to give a pleasing painting.

See how I took a photo study of another roofs tiles, so I understood how they interlocked. I also took a piece of broken roof tile home, so I could get the colour just right.

‘Snow scene Karnobat’ Bulgaria 2009 Now in Private Collection

‗Dilapidated House—Cherkovo‘ Bulgaria 2009 Now in Private Collection

ABOUT PHOTOGRAPHY I am a keen photographer, so tend to use the 1/3rd rules on composition, which you’ll learn in the later lesson, and it may help you when taking your own photographs. I rarely go anywhere without my trusty digital camera, and it’s invaluable, to quickly record a scene. I also keep a small notepad and pencil with me, on most trips, just to do quick sketches, wherever I go. As a general guide, I was always told to ‘record the scene’, so that’s without any zoom, just try and keep the camera still, you can always zoom on the p.c. later. But only If you have a sharp image to start with. And don’t forget to look behind you as sometimes it reveals the best photographs too. The Watercolour painting above could have been sold many times over. Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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Painting from Photographs Continued

In this last example, of a panorama in Sozopol, in Bulgaria, I wanted to show you how to record a scene from several photographs ‘stitched’ together, as it were. You can do this to paint a wide panorama, as with this one, but the technique can also be used if your in a narrow street say, or trying to record a high building. I had painted this scene over breakfast at the Kalithea Hotel and Restaurant, which has an almost arial view over the panorama of Sozopol. It’s a subject I had painted at different times, and had also taken overlapping photographs, so when I was commissioned by the Hotel, to paint this scene, I already had the material I needed.

Several smaller paintings of Sozopol Bay and Marina, and the finished Panorama Bulgaria 2009 All now in Private Collections

The Original sketch done over breakfast from the Hotel Balcony The Photographs

Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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Subject Matter

The subject matter you decide to paint, in your watercolours, can be anything of your choosing. My own preferences are for Architecture, Land, Town and Seascapes and The Female Human Form. I suppose, I am also a lover of decay in all it’s shapes and forms, a love first seen in Venice and now in Bulgaria. There is just something about earth coloured flaking paint and plaster, revealing render and brick beneath, that I find irresistible. You will, I’m sure, have your own favourites, and I hope the skills you will learn here, will help you to record your personal preferences and the subject matter that you like. Below are some of my favourite subjects, both in painting form, and in photographs, just to give you an idea of some of the subject matter, you may want to consider.

Paintings and photographs of subjects I like to paint

I try to keep an open mind about subject matter, and enjoy being surprised. Funnily, portraits of either people, animals or pets, simply don’t do it for me , though I admire those that can. Caricaturing appeals to my sense of humour I suppose, and may give that a try at some point. Floral painting, and still life painting is something that has had recent appeal for me, and I tried these subjects in miniature for my Greetings Card Range. They are likely to be the subject of more youtube tutorials too. My advice would be, to paint what moves you ! Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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Materials

The materials you will need, really depends on whether you get the ‘watercolour bug’ or not. In my experience, most people I teach personally do ! On the following pages, is a detailed description, of all of the materials used in watercolour painting. The materials you will need, as a beginner, assume you have already had a go with the big paintbrush that you got from the shed , standing up and painting, on the back of wallpaper, and now want to progress further. The photograph opposite, shows a typical student’s starter kit, and can be obtained anywhere, very cheaply and would include :1.

Some kind of board to paint on this one is thin ply about 51 x 36 cm (20’’ x 14’’ ) it just needs to be an inch bigger all round than your paper . 2. A pad of watercolour paper. 3. Masking or Gummed tape. 4. Paints in pans or tubes 5. Say 4 watercolour brushes 6. A white Palette to mix on ABOVE—A TYPICAL WATERCOLOUR STARTER KIT 7. Pencil or Graphite to draw with 8. A pencil Sharpener 9. A sharp Knife 10. A Putty Rubber In addition you will need a water container. Below are the items I use everyday in my ‘studio’.

My painting kit includes my trusty Brushes, white mixing dishes, and my Toolkit holding everything else, including a selection of my tubes of paints Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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Materials Continued

General Guide As a general Rule, once you are painting regularly, I would advise you to buy the very best materials you can afford. I know from experience, that picking flaking paint off your work, fallen from the handle of a cheaply bought brush, is just a false economy, and very annoying too. PAPER When you start painting, as I said in the Introduction to this course, use the cheapest paper you can, because you will waste plenty, but it will all be valuable practise, and you will paint something worth repeating, on decent paper, later on. Watercolour paper is usually sold in either pads, or in single sheets, and comes in different weights, and with various textures too. The type, and size of paper you buy, may be dependant on your budget, convenience, or even space considerations. More importantly though, is that once you have decided on your own personal style, and the subjects you like to paint, you‘ll also find which paper suits you. Because I like to paint ‗wet into wet‘, and capture textures my own personal preference is to use really thick English made, roughly textured paper, called 140lb (300gm) Bockingford. My only advice with paper, is to buy what you can buy locally, and experiment with different types, until you find one that you like, then stick with it. That way you will learn it‘s specific properties, drying times etc. and even it‘s limitations. The only thing is to ensure it is specifically for Watercolour painting. If you buy sheets, ensure it is loosely rolled, and never folded. And when you handle it, do so by touching the edge only, as there is always residual oils on your fingers, that can leave your finished paintings marked. Also never paint, or dry your paper or paintings in full sun, the paper hates it ! And if you dry it with a hairdryer, always use it on the slowest speed. WATERCOLOUR PAINTS I suppose that the first consideration with paint, is whether to use the solid pans, or tubes of paint. My own personal preference is for tubes, and the reason is really speed, because when I am working on a big wash, for a large area, the last thing I need, is to be scrubbing away at little pans of paint, whilst my paper is drying out. So I have never used them. Once again you may be limited by availability in your area, as I am here in Bulgaria, so just buy what you can, and the best you can afford. They are usually sold as Artists or Student quality, and are priced accordingly. Regarding the palette, really depends on your personal taste, but I reckon you only need about say 10 tubes, and I list my main colours below. Though I am always experimenting with new colour combinations, so try as many as you like. The purists would advise, not to use white as it isn‘t translucent (see through), like the other colours, but Chinese white can always be found in my art box. Don‘t worry if you can‘t buy all of the colours, just find the nearest colour to it.

Your palette may be dictated by your favourite subjects, and can also change with the seasons too so be prepared, and always keep spare tubes of your favourite colours in. Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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8.

Materials Continued

WATERCOLOUR PAINTS The main paint colours, I recommend for beginners, are as follows :Ivory Black Payne‘s Grey Light Red Burnt Umber Yellow Ochre Raw Sienna Ultramarine Blue Cobalt Blue Lemon Yellow Gamboge Some artists use those plastic trays with small sections for each colour, personally I find these restrictive, especially when mixing washes for large areas, though I do use one if demonstrating, or painting outside for instance.

My white plastic palette, for outdoors

My white mixing dishes, for studio work

Instead, I prefer to use cheap, plain white, china dishes, so I can be generous with my paint. At the end of each painting session, and even sometimes during a painting, I wash the weak mixed paint out of the bottom of the dishes. If this old paint subsequently gets re- used, it can lead to the dreaded muddy painting. Though I do leave a blob of paint on the sides of the dishes, and add to it with every painting session. This also serves to remind me, of my favourite colour combinations too. Some artists also recommend those white butchers trays though I would fear the colours running into each other. Maybe one of those with dividers in for party nibbles would work. Whatever you do use, make sure it‘s white, that way, you can see the mixed colour very easily, and gauge the mix accurately, which is imperative, with Watercolours.

I never mix my paint with my best brushes either, Instead I have a cheap kids brush, or two, specifically for this. Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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8.

Materials Continued

WATERCOLOUR BRUSHES Once again, quality is the key word here, so buy the very best you can afford, and ensure that they are watercolour specific, as oil brushes are much more coarse. Originally, traditional watercolour brushes, were made of animal hair, with red sable particularly popular. Though with technology, man made fibres, are now very good and a little cheaper. I have a combination of brushes, and always put them in my mouth to check the quality, to great amusement in my local Bulgarian Art Shop! If the bristles feel fine and silky smooth it‘s a good indication that it‘s a good brush. I also do this at the end of every painting session, as it helps to maintain the shape, particularly important for flat brushes. The sizes you will need really depend on the size of paintings you would like to do. My very limited range of brushes is as follows :A No 7 Round Red Sable Brush Van Gogh range by Royal Talens A No 14 Round Synthetic Brush from the Prolene Range by Pro Arte A ¼‘‘ Flat Brush from the Sceptre Range from Windsor and Newton A ¾‘‘ 12 Flat Brush D44 FROM THE Daler Range by Dalon A Bulgarian No 30 1‘‘ Flat Brush A cheap 2‘‘ paint brush from my local decorating store A Set of cheap kids brushes I also have some rough hogs hair brushes, in various sizes, useful for scrubbing out. Incidentally I never use my best brushes for Masking Fluid, whatever it says about cleaning, forget it, one dunk and it’s ruined, be warned !

myMY TRUSTY BRUSHES Treat them well, and they will reward you with many years of pleasurable painting ! There is a section on brush care later on. Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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8.

Materials Continued

OTHER ITEMS These items may depend on where you paint, or if you favour particular techniques, but might typically include things like :1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20.

An easel A drawing Board mine is ¾‘‘ plywood and about 25‘‘ x 35‘‘ A large water container, for washing brushes out A smaller water jug, for use with your paints Tape, for taping your paper down A pencil or better still a graphite pencil A putty rubber An Art knife or scalpel Masking fluid Wax candles, cut into various shapes and sizes Dip pens, sticks and quills Black and Brown Waterproof Drawing Ink Cheap paint Brushes to mix with and use for applying masking fluid Cotton wool buds for mopping puddles and blotting colour out White Kitchen roll, for blotting and cleaning up spills White Toilet tissue, to lift out colour Small sketch pad, for capturing the colours outside Compact watercolour set for use outside Digital Camera And even a personal computer

Every boy should have a box for his ‗toys‘, this is mine ! Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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9.

Getting Started

Well here we are at last, and can‘t put it off no longer ! Let‘s Paint …….. PREPARATION The first thing to do is to prepare your paper to paint on, which may involve stretching it, and is something that will either be necessary, or not, depending on several factors, including :1. The size you paint—The bigger you paint the more likely you will need to stretch. 2. The weight of your paper—If you use lighter paper you may have to stretch it. 3. How wet you paint—If you‘re a lover of wet techniques, as I am, it‘s likely that you

will need to stretch your paper every time you paint.

I would advise you, when starting out, to try painting WITHOUT stretching your paper, and see how you get on ! It will become apparent ,fairly quickly, if you need to stretch after all. STRETCHING WATERCOLOUR PAPER - WHY STRETCH PAPER AT ALL? You may ask why paper needs stretching in the first place. I suppose an analogy, would be when wallpapering. When you buy wallpaper, you paste it, and leave it to soak, for ten minutes or so. This is so that the paper has ‗grown‘ to it‘s biggest size, before you put it on the wall. In the same way if watercolour paper was used as it is, as soon as it was wetted with paint, it would ‗grow‘ and buckle, this is called ‗cockling‘. When this happens all the paint collects in the puddle, and dries with hard coloured edges. This watermarking, (sometimes known as ‗Cauliflowers‘) shows up badly on a finished painting, and is a definite ‗no-no‘ with the buying public, and is also difficult, though not impossible to remove. The bigger the sheet of paper, and lighter the weight of the paper, the more it will cockle. As I mentioned in the earlier section about materials, my personal preference for paper, is to use rough heavy paper, called 140lb Bockingford . I find it suits the subjects I like to paint, and stands up well to some of my more unusual techniques. In addition, one of my favourite ‗looks‘, in my paintings, is the dry brush technique, which is well suited to the texture of this paper. The technique of stretching is rewarding in itself, and I usually do this the at the end of the painting day, ready for the following one. It is possible to stretch paper in 10 or 15 minutes, with the help of a blow drier, but I always find that allowing the paper to dry naturally, overnight, gives flatter paper, which is easier to paint on. I describe overleaf, two methods for stretching paper, one using gummed tape (recommended) and a second slightly less reliable version for those (like me) who can only get masking tape. WHAT YOU WILL NEED Your board, paper, tape, a big brush (I use a 2‘‘ paint brush) sponge and water. Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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9.

Getting Started

Continued

STRETCHING WATERCOLOUR PAPER HOW TO DO IT ? Method 1—Using Gummed Tape (recommended) This method is the very best way of stretching watercolour paper, and I have used it very successfully, for many years. 1. Without touching the centre of the paper, carefully lower your paper flat into a sink or bath, of luke warm water. 2. Leave for 5-10 minutes to soak. 3. Pick up the paper by the edge, it should be quite floppy. 4. Shake off the surplus water, into the sink, until it‘s just about stopped dripping. 5. Lay the paper, flat on your board, and carefully mop 2‘‘ all the way round with a slightly moistened ,but wrung out sponge. 6. Moisten your gummed tape, and secure the paper to the board, on all four sides, about half on the board, and half on the paper. 7. Run around the edge of the board, with your dried sponge, to mop any surplus water. 8. Now run your finger carefully around the edge and make sure its all glued down, and moisten the tape again, if required, where necessary. 9. Now let it all dry naturally, and check it regularly, to make sure the tape stays in place. Re-wet and stick down any bits of tape that inevitably lift. 10. When dry, it should be as tight as a drum. Method 2—Using Masking Tape In some countries (like Bulgaria) you can‘t buy gummed tape easily, and they tend to use bulldog clips to ‘secure‘ the paper ! Anyway this is the method I use, every day. 1. Lay your paper on your board. 2. Secure all the way around the outside, with your 2‘‘ wide masking tape. 3. Moisten (but not soak) your paper, with a brush and clean water, ensuring that you mop all surplus water off the masking tape. Work from top to bottom. 5. Let it dry naturally. Note This method, using masking tape, gives you a nice white border around your finished pictures. Experiment with different brands of tape and avoid the ‗low tack‘ variety. You want tape that won‘t come undone, but that can be easily removed from your finished paintings.

Now we‘re really ready to paint !

A little time preparing your paper now, is much better than ‗doing battle‘ and trying to paint on ‗cockled‘ paper.

Method 2— Using a flat brush to carefully moisten the paper , working in broad sweeps of your brush left to right , and working down the paper. The secret to this method is not to use too much water & mop the border . Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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9.

Getting Started Continued

Now you have your paper stretched. You will need two containers for water, one for washing your brushes out, and a second to mix into your paints. I have two clear jugs for mine, of different sizes, so it‘s easy to instantly identify which is which. When I teach, I tend to use either washed out yoghurt pots, or those disposable plastic party ones. You will also need : Your paper fixed to your board  White Palette/pots to mix paint in  Paints  Brushes  Pencil or Graphite  Putty Rubber  White kitchen or toilet roll You may also need a little quiet time just for you. I am quite often asked how long a painting takes to do, from start to finish, and the answer, really depends on the type of subject, the techniques used, and the amount of detail in it. As you can see below it can take anything from 20 minutes to 3 days …….. I suppose the average time for a ‗sketchy‘ painting, is about an hour, and a full day for a quality detailed picture. The quickest of all, is with wet into wet technique, and literally takes the time it takes, for the paper to dry !

This first exercise, painting an orange, which explains Light and Shade will take 15-20 minutes. By contrast, because of the vast detail on this picture of Sozopol Bay in Bulgaria, it took me three full days to paint !

This almost all ‗wet into wet‘ technique took about 30 minutes from start to finish. Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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10. LESSON 1— ALL ABOUT LIGHT This very first lesson, on the understanding of light and shade, is probably the one most important lesson in this book, and will hopefully stand you in good stead for the future, and will enable you to produce paintings of any subject.

Then we shall begin ………… with a lonely Orange !

If you see one of these light bulbs, it In this lesson, about light and shade, we are going to start by really is one of those painting something as simple as an orange. It can be anything ‗light bulb‘ moments spherical, like a ball, and all you need to demonstrate this is a light that once you source, which can be natural light (as long as it only comes from understand, will make you go, ‗agh one side), or a lamp or torch. that‘s what it‘s all about‘ … so look out This demonstration, in two parts , is on youtube, and if you have access to the internet it may be useful to watch it first. for them throughout this book…….

If you recall in an earlier section, it was mentioned that watercolour painting is about leaving exposed white paper to denote the highlights in a watercolour painting. There are several ways of doing this, and it will be covered in a section later on ‗other techniques‘. But this way is the purist ‗less gimmicky‘ way to achieve your highlights, and is called ‗lifting out‘ or mopping out‘. It‘s also a useful technique to mop up slashes and lift out unwanted puddles. The technique involves using a moist brush to ‗lift‘ paint or water off the paper and is worth practising. It involves what‘s called capillary action, I think ! And works like this. HOW TO DO IT ? Because of the nature of the average animal hair, used in the making of watercolour brushes (each hair on your paintbrush being like a tiny tube, which is full of air, and presumably insulates the animal against the cold). If you moisten the brush then dry it, on say kitchen towel (but not too much so it‘s just damp), then hold the bristles into a puddle of water, or paint, quite unexpectedly it sucks it up into the bristles like magic ! Try it …... When the bristles are full, you simply wipe on the kitchen roll, swill your brush out and moist dry on your towel, then repeat, until you have the desired result (or the splash has gone). If a slight stain remains apply a small quantity of absolutely clean water, to the brush and keep lifting and repeating until your paper is white again, but don‘t over wet the paper, or it can cause a tide mark, or cauliflower stain. And that‘s the theory about ‗mopping out‘ or ‗lifting out‘. It‘s a great little technique, which I use a lot, as it helps to achieve a three dimensional quality to things that you paint, as you will see, with our lonely orange next. It‘s also a fantastic technique for painting skies …… ‗oh no, I dread them, I hear you sigh‘ ! I realise that for a beginner, painting skies can be the most daunting thing, all that paper to fill ! More on that in ‗painting easy skies ‗in a later section, or have a peek now ! Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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10. LESSON 1—ALL ABOUT LIGHT Continued Where were we, oh yes, our lonely little orange !

‗GROUNDING ‗ AN OBJECT

If you look at any object, in most light conditions, even when there is no direct Sun, you will notice that everything that you look at (with the exception of things that fly), cast some kind of mark, where they sit on the ground, or water, or table, or whatever else, it‘s sitting, moving or walking on.

This single little observation, that I picked up, or read somewhere, many years ago, is the thing that sets work apart, and gave a realism, to my subsequent paintings. THIS IS CALLED ‘GROUNDING‘ And it‘s not to be confused with shadows, or reflections, it‘s in addition to those things and ensures your objects ‗sit‘ in their surroundings. The area marked with the yellow circle is the ‗grounding‘ of the orange and makes it look like its sitting on a table, or something flat. Examples of this ‗Grounding‘ in my paintings.

As you can see, this ‗grounding‘ makes everything seem to ‗sit‘ and ‗belong‘ in their surroundings. It‘s the grounding that makes the fruit sit on the table, the sheep stand on the ground, the houses sit on the ground, and finally the old abandoned truck looking like it‘s been stood there, in the same spot, for many years ! Which of course it has …...

Please try this technique, when you paint. You‘ll be amazed what a difference it makes ! I‘ll show you HOW TO DO IT in a later lesson. Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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10. LESSON 1—ALL ABOUT LIGHT

Continued

So back to our friend the orange ……. This is the direction that the light source, (say the sun), comes from, and affects everything in our painting including ‗highlights‘ and shadows, on our orange

On the top left of the orange you can see the lightest area. These are the ‗highlights‘.

This subject of the direction of light on objects is crucial ,and shouldn‘t be skipped ! So it qualifies for a light bulb.

These are the ‗Darks‘ which are always on the opposite side to the Highlights

This is our grounding

These are the shadows, and also on the wall Behind our orange

Oh dear, our poor little orange looks like it‘s under attack … The straight orange lines, represent the direction, and angle, that the light source (here the sun) comes from, and will show you, just how long those shadows should be, and how much highlight and lowlight there should also be. Try this with your spherical object, and torch at home. Try altering the angles, the height, and bringing it forward and backwards to see how it affects everything. This effect, particularly of a low angle of light, on an object, or landscape, is what makes it beautiful. That‘s why when you take photographs, or look at a view, say, early in the morning, or late in the day, it always looks more attractive. This is because, when the angle of the sun is lower, the shadows lengthen and causes more pronounced highlights, darks and shadows. Conversely, in the middle of the day, when the sun is directly overhead, shadows are at their shortest, and the light can look ‗flat‘ and usually, less attractive, and striking. So it‘s these highlights, darks, shadows, and grounding, together, that make our orange look three dimensional. As you can see, after the object is ‗grounded‘, it has ‗highlights‘, on the top left hand side, ‘darks‘ on the lower right hand side, and finally shadows underneath it. Portraying these, very few different elements with any object, will give your Watercolour Paintings realism and atmosphere.

All this, is an example, of how light affects a a scene, and even how you can invent light, even if it never existed in the first place. When you start to paint, or if you have made a start, or seen my youtube tutorials, you will know that, making a note, with an arrow, showing the direction of the light, on the border of your paintings, is a crucial factor in recording a scene. Imagine a townscape, where the shadows on the chimneys, or the gable end walls, weren't all the same ! Your arrow just serves, as a constant reminder , as you progress through each painting.

If you have read, and thoroughly understood this crucial section WELL DONE TO YOU! You may even be confident enough to mark the light source on here and maybe even guess the time of day !

Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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10 LESSON 1—ALL ABOUT LIGHT Continued How this 3D illusion is achieved, that I described on the last pages, isn‘t the work of a magician, just a few simple, common sense steps, that really couldn‘t be easier. STEP 1

Draw your shape with a pencil and put an arrow to remind you where the light is. For purposes of clarity of these illustrations, you will see that the light source here, is coming from the right.

STEP 2

Fill in the outline carefully with paint. Use your board flat, and try and get an even coat of paint if you can. If you put too much on, you can mop it out, like I did on my youtube tutorial.

Step 3

Using a ‗just damp‘ brush, ‗lift out‘ the highlights, mopping up the colour, to reveal the white paper beneath. Blend the edge together, with a damp, clean brush.

Step 4

Now turn to the darker side, and add a dark tone, into the already damp orange paint. And watch it magically diffuse up into the orange paint. You can help, by blending these two colours together, to soften the transition, from one colour to the adjacent one.

STEP 5

Finally using the same darker colour, and add your grounding and shadows.

Once all your paint diffuses together, you will have a very convincing 3D orange, much better than my computer generated one !

One very important thing to bear in mind, and one worthy of a light bulb ,is to try and work quite quickly, then don't touch the paint once it loses it‘s shine, and starts to dry or you WILL end up with a muddy mess ! More on mud later … Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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11. LESSON 2— LOOKING, SEEING AND PAINTING SIMPLE TONES You may have noticed, that in the last exercise, there was no mention of how to mix that particular orange, or what colour combination gives you the darks, the shadows, or the grounding colour. This wasn‘t an accident, and we will be going into colours, in great depth, in a later lesson. For now though, I would like to turn our attention to looking, seeing and painting in simple monochrome tones. And these can be any colour you want, greys, browns or sepia‘s etc. To enable you to paint effectively, you need to understand how to make colours lighter and darker. With oils or acrylics, you would simply add white (or a lighter colour) to make a colour lighter, and black (or a darker colour) to make it darker. With Watercolours, you simply add more of less paint, or water, to affect the tone. Tone meaning how light or dark things are.

The ability to see the tones in a scene, and being able to copy those tones in coloured paint on your palette, is absolutely key to your accurate depiction of nature, in your landscapes and everything else you paint . Or you could choose to become a modern contemporary impressionist artist instead, or start throwing paint against walls ! The painting opposite, is an example of mine, depicting a fictitious evening scene, of a yacht sailing at night, in a real location in Sozopol, Bulgaria. I was working in a Gallery in this lovely resort, and doing live demonstrations both inside and outside. As the light quickly faded, I found it impractical, and almost impossible, to paint conventionally with colours. So I turned my attention to painting my favourite scenes but in sepia tints. Simply finding a colour you like, as I did here, then altering it tonally, by varying the amount of water and paint, really gets you into the groove of it‘s simple tones, and is a really good place to start your watercolour journey, once you've mastered our friend the orange. Copy this subject at home, and see if you can duplicate it. Just choose your favourite colour, and it can be any colour reds, blues, greens Yellows any colour just choose one. Some of you may notice the highlights are done in Chinese White Opaque paint.. Shock horror !

‗Night Sail from Sozopol‘ - Bulgaria 2009 An example of a simple tonal painting using just two colours, and painted at night, under artificial lights, in a dimly lit Gallery.

Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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11. LESSON 2— LOOKING, SEEING AND PAINTING SIMPLE TONES Continued I hope you had a go at painting tonally, it‘s very rewarding, and commercial too ! HOW TO LOOK, AND SEE TONES, IN A SCENE When painting generally, and also tonally, it‘s sometimes difficult, with so much information and detail, to be able to see the tones clearly in a scene. In Yorkshire we say that you ‗can‘t see the wood for the trees‘ ! My Dad used to say ‗let the dog see the rabbit‘ which could also be applied here. This is an age old problem, for artists, but one with several ways, to crack it. Some traditional and some a little more high tech. TRADITIONAL METHODS Method 1 (and the one I prefer) Look at a scene normally, then try looking at the same scene, with half closed eyes. Magically, all the details, and extraneous information, just disappears, leaving just the tones, of the scene. I try not to do this in public, as you can either look like a dirty old man, or someone with really bad eyesight, either way, not good looks ! Method 2 If you paint a piece of glass on the back in a dark colour, black or brown say, then look at the scene reflected in the glass, it is reduced to simple tones. I believe this is called a ‗Claude Mirror‘ so maybe Monet, was the inventor. MODERN METHODS Method 3 (I came across this quite by accident, incidentally) Upload a scene, taken on your digital camera, and get it up on your computer‘s monitor. Now simply tip the monitor screen, forwards or backwards, and it reduces it to simple tones too. Method 4 I will demonstrate this next technique further, on the following page. But basically, you upload your images from your digital camera, and then using digital imaging software like Adobe Photoshop, Picassa or Paint, the one that comes free on every PC, simply alter the Contrast or Brightness until it reveals just the tones. Whichever method you use, and it may be that like me, you use most of them, depending on what, or probably more likely, where your doing your painting. THE CHOICE IS YOURS

Which ever method you choose, all that matters is that your simplifying the image, into simple tones, which you can then transfer to your paintings.

Photographing in Black and White can help too, but again, this can also be done ‗post production‘ in your Studio back at home. Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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11. LESSON 2— LOOKING, SEEING AND PAINTING SIMPLE TONES Continued HOW TO SEE TONES IN A SCENE Method 4—Using Computer software for your photographs. This technique, I‘m sure would draw gasps of disapproval, from those in the know, but it‘s something I use occasionally, particularly if a subject has many apparently complicated ‗planes‘, a ‗plane‘ being a section of the depth of a scene or painting. Typically, a land or seascape, as shown here, has about 3 or 4 ‗planes‘, and we will be discussing that, in much greater detail, in a later Lesson, on Recession. Put simply, the different ‗planes‘ in this example, and the order to paint them are :1. SKY (in this painting I actually tinted the paper first, to give atmosphere) 2. DISTANT SEA 3. MIDDLE GROUND (the furthest spit of land, rocks and houses) 4. FOREGROUND (the nearest house, and the beach) 5. DETAIL (the nearest grasses, highlights on the rocks, and the yacht) As we have already used my painting ‗Night Sail from Sozopol‘ when discussing tonal painting, lets still use that, as an example, of how to use your pc, to help you paint it.

This is the painting if you recall of Sozopol

And this was the original photograph I worked off. Though I also did a sketch of the scene, too. My original photo, showed a family holiday scene, with the rowing boat on the beach and the swings. I wanted a more ‗late on in the season‘ atmosphere, and to depict a sense of isolation for the houses ‗just them against the sea‘ feel.

The newly cropped image used for the painting

The sky, and look of the wet sand, are quite accidental, and caused by just leaving some unpainted areas, when I tinted the paper. The first thing I did, with this photo, was to crop it, as shown above. This then left the much more pleasing composition, after cropping. Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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11. LESSON 2— LOOKING, SEEING AND PAINTING SIMPLE TONES Continued HOW TO SEE TONES IN A SCENE Method 4—Using Computer software for your photographs. So this was the original, now cropped image, in bright sunshine.

As you can see from the finished painting, compared to the photographs. It‘s not a slavish copy, it just captures the essence of the scene, the main parts, that people would remember, and recognize. The things one adds, as an artist like the atmosphere, serenity, peace, calm and nostalgia, are things a photographer can only envy…..

In this revised version I changed it to Black and White and increased the Contrast revealing more clearly, where the highlights, darks and shadows are ,without risking any strange looks, as I walk around with half closed eyes ! All done in the comfort of your own pc ...

As you can hopefully see, by digitally changing the photograph, makes it easier to see the darks, highlights and shadows. The picture I did, was from my original sketch, and as you can see, I again used ‗Artistic License‘, by clearing the beach, removing the swings and the boat, and finally introducing the yacht … oh the power of the Artist !

If you decide to give this subject a go, to paint tonally, just sketch it out, and start with the lightest and furthest away ‗planes‘ first . The colour I used to get the Sepia was Burnt Umber and Paynes Grey. Remember to dry each ‗plane ‗ before starting the next one . And just keep adding more dark colour, ( Paynes Grey) to the mix, as you move forward into the middle, and foreground. Working pale to dark, and distance to foreground, ensures distance in your paintings, and is called ‗recession‘ . We will be covering all these aspects, in much more detail, in later lessons ! Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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12. LESSON 3— HOW TO REALLY LOOK SO YOU CAN COPY WHAT YOU SEE DRAWING WHAT YOU SEE This course, is specifically aimed at Watercolour Techniques, and assumes some drawing skills. Drawing is a whole subject on its own, and is also an Art form, in its own right, but I hope the information below may be a useful guide. I have never been fortunate enough, nor had the time, to study Art formally, and so sections in books on perspective, and eye-level, find me just glazing over, and so I avoided them. Don‘t get me wrong, I understand the theory, but find that all that mathematical stuff, takes away from the freedom and enjoyment of painting.

My own ‗skill‘ , (if that‘s what it can be called ), is to be able to look very carefully, and draw what I see. And that‘s the key to not being beholden to dogmatic rules. But, in order to give you that freedom too, it‘s imperative that you not only see, but REALLY LOOK at what you want to portray. I do try and observe accurately, and can usually know, if something looks right, or not, and I would encourage you to try and do likewise.

In this drawing of my proposed studio, I show you the amount of detailed drawing, that went into that subject, before I started painting it. In some cases, like the ‗Snow Scene, Karnobat‘ used on Youtube, there was hardly any drawing at all, just a few guidelines for horizon, hill, rocks, and trees.

With a complicated scene like this one of Nessebar in Bulgaria, try and get the proportions right, and how each section relates to the adjoining one, with one eye always on the composition. I try and draw loosely, and use a soft graphite pencil. It‘s a personal thing, but some clients like to see this under-drawing, and that it adds to the finished artwork. If not, you can remove the pencil lines with a soft putty rubber at the very end, just make sure your painting is hard dry before even attempting this though. Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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13. LESSON 4— COMPOSITION Composition, in the words of the Dictionary say …... ‗Fine Arts. the organization or grouping, of the different parts of a work of art, so as to

achieve a unified whole‘.

If you look at many great works of Art through the ages, it strikes me, that some of the more traditionally understood recent thinking on the subject seems flawed. I am sure that the thinking, on composition, changes like the weather, or fashion. How then should a beginner tackle the subject ? To start with, I would suggest that you keep it very simple, and basic. THE RULE OF THIRDS Try to imagine your paper divided up like this in sections of thirds, and just mark the border of your paper with a dash to help guide you.

fig 2 SKY

fig 1

1/3 rd Marks

HORIZON SKY LAND

1/3 rd Marks

HORIZON LAND

LANDSCAPE GRID

RIGHT

PORTRAIT GRID

With this basic type of 1/3rd composition you position your horizon on one of the third lines, and it can be on either the higher one as in figure 2 if you wanted the emphasis on the foreground. Or alternatively it can be on the lower one as in figure 1 with the emphasis on the sky. Once you have decided what type of composition you want in your painting you then position the main items where the grids cross on the thirds. In the examples of a tree above you can see that its positioned on the thirds dissection line and seems just right in that position. Alternatively as you can see in these two examples of poor composition where the horizon, and the positioning of the tree, splits the picture in two. They both seem to give the viewer nothing to consider, or anywhere for the eye to investigate. And they just seem frankly a bit dull. That however can be the sentiment that WRONG you may want to portray in a particular piece of your work. The thing is that as an Artist you have the power to change and move things around whilst still keeping the essence of any given scene.

x

There are exceptions of course to every rule, and I show you some of my own work where I have bent these principles !

Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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13. LESSON 4— COMPOSITION Continued As you saw on the previous page the artistic license to be able to move things around at will ‗Artistic License‘ gives you the power to move things around to achieve that

‗organizing or grouping of the different parts of a work of art so as to achieve a unified whole‘.

Another thing it allows you to do is add things or take things away, as I demonstrated with the painting at Sozopol, removing boats, clearing the beach , adding the yacht etc. You can also use this license to fell or add tree, or move them and demolish buildings add new ones or move them. Here are a couple of examples of those exceptions in my work where I flout those 1/3rd Rules on the previous page. I came across this view on a warm Summers Day near my village, which is an intensively farmed area. In these massive corn fields, previously used to feed The Soviet People, I was struck by the strength of this lone oak tree. To me it portrayed strength and survival in the face of adversity, having survived to adulthood against all the attention of the ploughs and combined harvesters that eventually would have to go around it . For that reason I wanted to isolate it in the field almost like a sentry for the landscape, so decided on it‘s central position on the paper. The horizon line is still roughly 1/3rd of the way up.

‗The Lone Tree‘ Cherkovo—Bulgaria 2009

Only you, the viewer can judge if a painting is pleasing or not. Sometimes capturing a moment with little or no regard for the rules is the right thing to do, it‘s Art after all !

With the picture on the right. I painted it for my Sister. It had been a memory I had of us playing together in a rock pool on the Yorkshire coast. I had wanted to paint this scene for about 45 years and eventually had reason to capture those endless Summer days with big skies. I positioned us very low down and in the corner as I wanted to give the feeling of intensity, of us concentrating on the contents of the rock pool. Endless Summer days with not a care in the world, were my intentions here. Where the only thing to worry about was if you could eat your ice cream before it ran down your arm, and trying to avoid my Big Bother Les‘s seeming obsession to constantly throw wet sand at us. Sweet memories indeed.

‗The Rock Pool‘ For Julie 2009 NOT FOR SALE

It certainly captured the imagination, and I could have sold this painting many times over. In the next section we look at different types of composition, and ways and tricks you can use from your armoury to get people to engage in your pictures ! Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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13. LESSON 4— COMPOSITION Continued There are many types of composition, and you can see it in play in other peoples work, and we will be discussing those different types next. But for now if we could just consider my earlier statement about Artistic License and moving things around. It also means that you can resizes things too, let me explain some very simple do‘s and don‘t when painting , drawing or for that matter when you take photographs. Let‘s start with our simple 1/3rd grid again. RULE 1—NEVER HAVE 2 OBJECTS OF A SIMILAR SIZE You may have to increase the size of one and decrease the other. This ability to alter things is great and can give a timeless quality to your pictures. You can leave out all the trappings of modern life, such as cars, pylons and satellite dishes and telephone boxes for example.

RULE 2— ENSURE NOTHING LINES UP WITH OTHER THINGS BUT OFFSET THEM

Understanding and more importantly recognising and changing potential lining up issues in your paintings is key to their Beauty and Harmony.

fig 1

fig 2

As you can see in these two examples above. In figure 1 the tree is the same size as the telegraph pole, and looks like it comes from the centre of the house roof. The line representing the distant hills lines up with the roof line altogether a bit of a messy composition. These lines sometimes only become apparent at the end of the painting by the way, so it‘s as well to be aware of them from the start. As you can see in figure 2 all these things have been altered using artistic licence to reveal a much more harmonious feel to the painting. Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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13. LESSON 4— COMPOSITION Continued RULE 3—NEVER CLOSE DOORS OR GATES IN YOUR PAINTINGS If you do this it usually stops the viewers eye from investigating your painting, rather than inviting them in. Imagine any of these paintings with the gates or doors closed, it would give a feeling of the viewer not being allowed in and excluding and therefore not engaging them. These examples give you some idea of how important this little detail is. Left ‗Cherkovo Church‘ Now in Private Collection

Though conversely this rule may be used to your advantage. With this picture of our, once proud, village‘s school doors, on the right . It was this very sense, of poignancy and exclusion that I wanted to capture. The doors now padlocked ‗The Old School Doors‘ Cherkovo Bulgaria 2009 and I wanted that sadness Now in Private Collection and nostalgia to be the main point of this study.

‗Opposite my House‘ Cherkovo Bulgaria 2009

Lef Fru t it S el S Bul ozopol ler‘ gar ia 2 Priv Now in 009 ate Coll ecti on ‗The

TOP TIP

When starting a painting the first thing to do is mark the direction of the sun and mark your third marks on the borders of your painting. You can then refer to them constantly throughout.

RULE 4—USE DARKS AND HIGHLIGHTS TO LEAD YOUR VIEWER THROUGH YOUR PAINTING TO WHERE YOU WANT THEM TO GO In this example of one of my compositions I use the ‗dark‘ of the track that leads up to the top of the hill with the TV masts on to lead the viewers eye. I also use the vertical lines of the other mast, on the left, and wind generator on the right (circled) to ensure that the viewers, eye doesn‘t wander from the painting. You can use any vertical item to do this in your work, like ‗Karnobat Hill‘ using trees or boat masts for Bulgaria 2009 example. Now in Private Collection Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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13. LESSON 4— COMPOSITION Continued Finally on the subject of Composition. There are many types of composition, that is shapes you can create in your paintings to give a pleasing and rewarding ‗journey‘ for your viewers (and you) to enjoy and they are usually associated with shapes or letters of the alphabet to describe them.

These two paintings use an L-shaped composition which are nice for using on simple subjects. It can in my view be a little boring and demands very little engagement or investigation by the viewer. A handy composition for quite small works.

Cherkovo Bridge Private Collection The painting on the right called ‗The importance of the Blue Barrels‘ is a kind of inverted C Composition with a bit of a twist, as it‘s possible for the eye to climb the fruit tree in two ways. My eye starts at the wheelbarrow, then investigates the chickens pecking at the fallen fruit, then either heads up the sloping pole, or looks at the other two chickens, then onwards up the bow of the tree. This is a neighbours house and I gave her the picture for Christmas. The relevance of the barrels is because they are used for the grape harvest to make the years supply of vino or the local ‗hooch‘ Rakia !

Tree Study II Private Collection The painting below ‗Karnobat Tower‘ is another inverted C Composition. This time the eye starts bottom left and follows the line of the trees and bushes to the right (funnily the border then takes the eye up to the overhanging tree). The angle of the leaves then leading down to investigate the ancient Clock Tower finally.

Thankfully everyone see pictures differently and you may not agree with my interpretation and that‘s exactly as it should be. OTHER TYPES OF COMPOSITION INCLUDE

SWCMZLU SEE IF YOU CAN SPOT THE TYPE OF COMPOSITION IN ANY ARTWORK Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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14. LESSON 5— COUNTER-CHANGE A funny word that one, and not one I had come across before I started painting. In short, it probably means contrast. If I can explain further, counter-change, is the positioning of dark things, against light things, and also light things against dark things. And each of the light and dark things, whatever they are, seem to benefit , from their proximity, and tonal relationship, with the other one. You know when you see a view, or a photo, or picture, and you simply have to comment about it‘s beauty….. well it‘s a fair bet, that the attraction, that initially caught your eye, was ‗counter-change‘, and if you analyse what it was about the scene that moved you, in detail, you‘ll find that‘s what it was. It‘s that special ‗something‘ and makes people want to remember it, and keep it to remind them, of that emotion …. The bright yellow of the oil rape seed field lit in sun against a dark thundery sky… The shaft of light on the water contrasting against the dark mud bank… the bright sunlit Autumn leaves against the dark forest… are you getting the idea ? So, whenever you paint something dark, or light, in your painting, consider positioning the contrast adjacent to it.

Some examples of Counter-Change in my work.

It‘s those white and silhouetted seagulls against that dark stormy sky. Or the silhouetted man and trees against the white painted outdoor theatre. Or the dark grasses, poking through the pure white snow, or the white of the snow still un-melted, on the cold side of the dark rocks ! Or it‘s the lady dressed in black in the shop doorway… Or the white bleached tree trunk, against the dark shadow, of the underneath of the bridge, etc etc..

It‘s just that very special something, that you should always include, in your paintings. Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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15. LESSON 6— RECESSION Recession, is one of the easiest of things to achieve in your paintings, but one of the hardest things to judge for a beginner, because it relies totally on the accurate judgement of tone, in your mixed colours, which only comes with practise. Recession, is the ability to achieve distance in a painting, by varying the strength of tone and colour. The lightest being the furthest thing away and the strongest being the closest to you. It‘s importance, is why one of the earliest lessons, was about painting tonally. Let me explain. If you recall we discussed the subject of ‗planes‘ in a painting, which is usually three , four or even more ‗planes‘, depending on the scene. The lightest plane being the furthest one away, say the sky, then the next nearest, and so on, until you reach the darkest foreground. This then gives the illusion of depth to your paintings, and avoids them being flat ie. all the same tone. PLANE 1—SKY

PLANE 2 —BACKGROUND

PLANE 3 — MIDDLE

PLANE 4—FOREGROUNDPLANE

THE THEORY OF RECESSION If I explain this, and the potential hazard, for the beginner using shades of grey to black for this example. If you paint your very first ‗plane‘ of your painting too dark, it then becomes more difficult for you to achieve recession, because the darkest you can go is black ! So you need to consider tonally, your painting at the outset, particularly your first colour, or it will end up being flat, and having no distance.

We will be looking at all aspects of this, when we get to the lesson called, ‗Putting it all together, the painting process‘ towards the end of this book. In the meantime, you can have a look at how this works in practise, by looking at my three part youtube video ‗Snow Scene Karnobat‘ which I use below to explain further. L I G H T E R T O D A R K E R

Plane 1—Sky The lightest colour of all I hope this schematic helps, as you can see, you start with the most distant ,and lightest plane, and move forward in stages, drying the paint in between each stage. Which is imperative.

Plane 2—Distant hills and shadows Plane 3—Trees and Grasses Plane 4—Rocks and Final details Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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15. LESSON 6— RECESSION Continued One of the biggest, and most important issues about achieving recession, in your paintings, is the following strange occurrence.

IF YOU LOOK AT ANY SCENE WITH ANY DISTANCE IN IT, IT IS NOTICABLE IF YOU ‗REALLY LOOK‘ THAT THE FURTHER AWAY AN OBJECT IS THE MORE BLUE IT IS ! STRANGE BUT TRUE……. Your understanding of this, and being able to duplicate it in your painting, is crucial to the realism, and interest, in your watercolours. The best way to prove this strange fact, and investigate why, is probably with this photograph, of a scene, outside my village, in Bulgaria.

C A

B

Ok here we go … We know that roughly speaking, that this green grass here, is a similar colour in real life, as it is in the far distance here, but it doesn‘t look like it does it ? It seems more blue… And the trees marked with a circle, are also roughly the same colour of Green, but the ones nearest us A are the darkest, then the ones in the middle B have more blue in them. But the ones in the furthest distance C are the bluest of all. It is also true of the yellow of the oil seed rape flowers, that are also more blue in the distance, than in the foreground. The scientific explanation to this strange phenomenon, is due to the distance between the objects and our eyes, and the atmospheric conditions, like dust, mist, smoke etc. between our eye, and those distant objects, that makes them more blue.

As an artist we can exploit the phenomenon and put quite simply ‗THE FURTHER AWAY AN OBJECT IS THE BLUER IT IS‘ So if you want to achieve distance, or recession in your work, just add more blue, the further away it is , simple ! Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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16. LESSON 7—STARTING WITH COLOUR On the very first pages ‗What you do and don‘t need to know‘, I mentioned that one of the things you don‘t need to know about is about the Colour Wheel. They are pretty to look at, and I was tempted to include one for aesthetics, but decided against it ! But once again, not knowing or understanding about such things, as complimentary, or contrasting colours, can only work if you hone your observational ‗really looking‘ skills, to enable you to record accurately, and copy faithfully. That‘s what we will be concentrating on in this section on colour. THE KEY HERE IS THIS—MOTHER NATURE HAS DONE ALL THE HARD COLOUR MATCHING AND CO-ORDINATION FOR YOU SO JUST COPY IT ! She already knows, that the clear blue Winter sky, is a great contrast to that orangey bracken, and the dark brown of the stark Winter Trees… She already knows that the White seagulls look stunning, against the heavy thundery sky… she already knows that the vibrant Red Poppies, look fantastic against a golden corn field…

Do you get the idea ? Your eyes tell you what works together so just follow those instincts, then just simply record it ! To use a cooking analogy, you have seen the pretty pictures of the dishes, now all you need are the ingredients and the recipes. That‘s what this section is all about, giving you the recipes. There are Rules and Guidelines to be followed if you want to achieve professional results, in your paintings, and we will start with these now. And these are based on my original thoughts as a beginner, so don‘t think your alone if you also thought this ! TWO GOLDEN RULES ABOUT MIXING WATERCOLOUR PAINTS 1.

WHATEVER YOU THINK, YOU CAN‘T JUST BUY THE PERFECT COLOUR YOU NEED AND USE STRAIGHT IT FROM THE TUBE ! YOU SIMPLY HAVE TO LEARN TO MIX YOUR OWN COLOURS.

When you start painting, and realise how many colours the manufacturers make you think it will be easy to just walk into your nearest Art shop and buy all the colours you will need. For some strange reason this seems to be particularly true of Blues and Greens. Maybe because those are the ones that hold the most fear for beginners. All those trees and all that sky to fill. I tried this when I started too, and your paintings end up like a packet of those brightly coloured sweets, Skittles ! When I see other artists work I can instantly see who is weak, and who is strong at mixing colour, as it stands out a mile. The colours in nature are subtle, and endless, so we need to be just as clever and subtle. At first it‘s daunting I know, but hopefully at the end of this Chapter you will see how easy it really is. 2.

NEVER EVER MIX MORE THAN 4 COLOURS TOGETHER, IT ALWAYS ENDS UP WITH MUDDY BROWN. Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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16. LESSON 7—STARTING WITH COLOUR

Continued

Ok look, I know I promised, but frankly for a Lesson about colour, the last page looked a bit dull ! THE COLOUR WHEEL It‘s ok don‘t panic, we aren't going to discuss it‘s virtues it‘s only there to brighten the place up a bit ! Well it may come in handy if we need to refer to it … It‘s a really interesting ….. bla bla bla ! So we now know the golden rules, about mixing your colours, and to re-cap from the previous page. 1. 2.

YOU WILL NEED TO MIX YOUR COLOURS AND NEVER MIX MORE THAN 4 OR YOU GET MUD

I will give you my very favourite mixes later in this lesson, and just before then, we will remind ourselves of the formula‘s we learnt in infant school, and since forgot, which include the following :Red + Blue = Purple Blue + Yellow = Green Red + Yellow = Orange Blue + Green = Turquoise Red + Green + Blue = Brown Blue + Brown = Black Brown + Black = Dark Brown Although these combinations are very basic, they still hold true, long after pre- school classes.

You can download colour charts from all the Watercolour Paint Manufacturers via the Internet. Or from your local Art shop

Before we start on those colours I use, and the limited palette I recommend you start with, I just want to go through how I physically mix the paint, in my dishes. I mentioned earlier about keeping your washes clean and the need to have two water containers, one to wash your brushes out, and the second one, we are concentrating on now, the one we mix our paints with. This is the procedure I always use which keeps my washes clean and pure. STEP 1 Moisten the brush your mixing with in clean water

STEP 2 Dip your moist brush into the clean water and load the brush

STEP 3 Press the loaded brush against the side of the bowl

STEP 4 Keep repeating until you have enough water in your bowl

TOP TIP Always mix more paint than you need, and leave it in tact in your dish, just in case you need it later on in the same painting, as it can be difficult to exactly duplicate the colour. Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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16. LESSON 7—STARTING WITH COLOUR Continued So, you now know how to keep you paint washes clean, by dropping clean water down the side of the dish, and keep doing this repeatedly, until you have more than enough paint than you need. Don‘t be tempted to start mixing just yet. If you notice your water jug or container, it should still be clean, and pure, for the next colour mix.

Yellow Ochre Gamboge

Lemon Yellow

Cadmium Red

The water in your container should still be clean ?

Once you have enough water in your bowl, (or palette ), you can start mixing your colours together in them. There are lots of colour combinations I use, and am always experimenting with new ones, ( for instance when I moved abroad to a hot country, I realised that my trusty Ultramarine based sky, used happily in England, just didn‘t look right, so I had to experiment with other blues, until I got it just right ). Because there are so many combinations I use, and these obviously change with the seasons, (not much call for Oil Rape seed yellow in Winter for example). So because of all these combinations I tend to use my dishes, as a physical reminder of those colour mixes. For example, the one above on the left, I know from looking at it, is a dish I use when I paint Summer Cornfields, with colours Lemon Yellow, Gamboge, Yellow Ochre and Cadmium Red. You‘ll also notice that I only let the colours bleed down into the mix, if I need them, by just putting water on them. The Lemon Yellow and Red for instance, are still dry, but the Gamboge and Yellow, are being mixed in the bowl. The important thing, is to keep the mix in the bottom of the dish pure, and not let it get contaminated by the others inadvertantly. This is the reason, I squeeze the colour on to the top rim of the bowl, and not in the bottom of it. At the end of each painting session, and sometimes several times during it, I will clean the bowl, and dry it with kitchen towel. Particularly if I feel the purity of the wash is being compromised, either by other colours bleeding down into the mix, or more normally, because I got the water containers mixed up, and now they both look the same muddy brown colour. That‘s when it‘s time to change both waters too, which also happens several times during the painting session.

Did anyone spot my ‗skies‘ dish !

Any other guesses !

Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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16. LESSON 7—STARTING WITH COLOUR Continued So to re-cap the technique (assuming your using tubes of paint of course) is to squeeze a small amount of paint towards the top of your dish, if you put too much on, it runs down into your clean water. When painting certain elements in a watercolour, the sky for instance, it‘s important to get the paint mixed fairly consistently, with the water, so avoiding any striations of an unmixed colour. But with other, less fluid elements, its ok for the mix not to be too consistent, if fact a variation of several colours adds to the beauty. AND DON‘T FORGET LIGHTER—ADD WATER , DARKER ADD PAINT ! So let me list the palette I would suggest you start with:1. Ivory Black O BUYING PAINTS 2. Payne‘s Grey C Don’t be too worried if you can’t get the exact colour I list here, and 3. Light Red C the names also seem to vary from one manufacturer to another, so just 4. Burnt Umber C substitute at will, with the nearest they have. 5. Yellow Ochre C Also the tube sizes seem to vary but 10-12ml is about the standard tube 6. Raw Sienna O size. A little paint goes a long, long way, and any left on your dishes 7. Ultramarine Blue C will get re-used too. So it’s a very economical hobby as well ! 8. Cobalt Blue O You will tend to use more blacks, browns, and blues, so if you live far 9. Lemon Yellow C from an Art Shop, it may be worth buying extra of those colours. 10. Gamboge O KEY TO SYMBOLS C– COMPULSORY O-OPTIONAL

Of the 10 Colours 6 are definites, and the other 4 are optional In addition, I will give you the colours in my dishes at any given time, it‘s uses and what are the particular properties that I like about them. SKIES—BRIGHT 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

ULTRAMARINE COBALT BLUE CURRELEAUN BLUE LIGHT RED PAYNE‘S GREY

COOLISH ENGLISH TYPE SKY COLOUR FOREIGN SKY COLOUR MIX WITH OTHER BLUES AZURE BLUE SKY COLOUR ADD IN SMALL AMMOUNTS TO WARM THINGS UP JUST A TOUCH TO THE CLOUDS TO ADD SHADOW

SKIES—THUNDERY 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

LAMP BLACK PAYNE‘S GREY LIGHT RED YELLOW OCHRE LEMON YELLOW

A REAL ANGRY DARK THAT GRANULATES A LIGHTER VERSION GIVES THAT REAL THREAT WHEN MIXED WITH DARK DEEP SUNLIGHT THROUGH THE CLOUDS A BRIGHTER VERSION OF THE SAME

LAND HILLS ROCKS 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

BURNT UMBER YELLOW OCHRE BURNT SIENNA RAW SIENNA LAMP BLACK LIGHT RED ULTRAMARINE BLUE

GREAT FOR ROCKS AND PEAT GOOD WITH BLUE WINTER GRASSES COMBINE WITH OCHRE AND TO BURNT UMBER FOR HILLS COMBINE WITH ANY OTHER EARTH COLOUR ADDS SHADOWS TO ROCKS ADD TO SIENNA FOR FOREIGN SOIL COLOUR ADD TO BROWN FOR SHINY ROCKS

GREENS FOR TREES 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

GAMBOGE LEMON YELLOW ULTRAMARINE YELLOW OCHRE COBALT BLUE

COMBINE WITH ANY BLUE FOR RICH GREEN COMBINE WITH ANY BLUE FOR SPRING GREEN MIX WITH BOTH YELLOWS FOR MID GREEN MIX WITH COBALT FOR LATE SUMMER GREEN MIX WITH ANY YELLOWS

THESE ARE JUST A FEW OF THE MANY POSSIBLE COMBINATIONS POSSIBLE

Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

MORE OVERLEAF

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16. LESSON 7—STARTING WITH COLOUR Continued OTHER COLOURS & COMBINATIONS In addition to my main colours listed on the previous page. I also like to try colour combinations from other artists, and to also devise my own, and once you have gained confidence, you may like to that try too. The way I approach this, is to look at a scene, and see if I can guess what combination of colours I would use to copy the colour. Try doing this with Great Masters works too, it‘s lots of fun, just keep a note of what you use, so that you can duplicate it again later on. Mix the main colour, and the second, then small quantities of no more than two others, (say a blue for sky), or combination of two colours (like mixing a yellow and a blue to make a green), but do this by adding very small quantities of each colour, as some can be very overpowering. Note that a lot of these colours aren't in the standard palette. SEPIA Burnt Sienna / Lamp Black +Indigo WASHES Raw Sienna / Indigo Cobalt Blue / Cadmium Red / Raw Sienna at bottom Yellow Ochre / Aureolin Cobalt Blue / Viridian Green SKIES/WATER Cobalt Blue / Raw Sienna / Burnt Umber for Darks Paynes Grey / Indigo Lamp Black / Phthalo Blue/ Alizarin Crimson Coeruleum Blue / Crimson Alizarin / Cadmium Yellow Pale (also add Yellow Ochre lower down) Coeruleum Blue / Alizarin Crimson Paynes Grey /Alizarin Crimson / Yellow Ochre Raw Sienna / Ultramarine Blue Burnt Umber / Ultramarine Blue SHADOWS Paynes Grey /Alizarin Crimson / Yellow Ochre Ultramarine Blue / Crimson Alizarin / Cadmium Yellow Light Red / Raw Sienna / Ultramarine Blue LAND Lamp Black / Brown Madder Alizarin Burnt Umber / Ultramarine Blue Brown Madder / Hookers Green / Burnt Umber Ultramarine Blue / Lamp Black Burnt Umber / Burnt Sienna / Light Red Lamp Black / Brown Madder Alizarin Paynes Grey / Ultramarine Blue FIELDS Cadmium Yellow / Hookers Green / Crimson Alizarin / Ultramarine Blue As above but substitute Blue with Paynes Grey Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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16. LESSON 7—STARTING WITH COLOUR Continued OTHER COLOURS & COMBINATIONS—Continued HEATHER / MOORS Alarizon Crimson / Phthalo Blue Paynes Grey / Alizarin Crimson Ultramarine Blue / Alizarin Crimson TREES / GRASS Ultramarine Blue / Lemon Yellow /Raw Sienna / Paynes Grey Paynes Grey / Lemon Yellow Hookers Green / Burnt Umber Hookers Green / Burnt Sienna or Raw Sienna Burnt Umber / Any Blue Lamp Black / Yellow Ochre / Raw Sienna Yellow Ochre / Raw Sienna Cadmium Yellow / Lamp Black Ultramarine Blue / Crimson Alizarin Hookers Green / Crimson Alizarin Paynes Grey / Burnt Umber Hookers Green / Paynes Grey / Crimson Alizarin / Cadmium Yellow + Ultramarine Tree Trunks Burnt Umber / Hookers Green / Cadmium Yellow BUILDINGS Walls Burnt Umber / Any Blue Lamp Black / Brown Madder Alizarin Raw Sienna / Cadmium Red / Burnt Umber / Cobalt Blue Burnt Umber / Cobalt Blue Raw Sienna / Lamp Black Yellow Ochre / Crimson Alizarin + Ultramarine Blue for shadows Timber Burnt Umber / French Ultramarine Raw Umber / Paynes Grey Roofs Pan tiles Cadmium Yellow / Alizarin Crimson / Hookers Green Light Red / Raw Sienna + Ultramarine for Shadows Raw Sienna / Light Red Lemon Yellow / Light Red Alizarin Crimson / Lemon Yellow Grey roof tiles Coeruleum Blue / Cadmium Yellow Ultramarine Blue / Crimson Alizarin / Yellow Ochre SKIN TONES Yellow Ochre / Cadmium Red Cadmium Red/ Cadmium Yellow / Ultramarine Blue Darker skin tones Add Paynes Grey or Burnt Umber to the above. Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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16. LESSON 7—STARTING WITH COLOUR Continued OTHER COLOURS & COMBINATIONS Continued Below, I also list a few combinations of a basic palette, to take out in the field say. Using a combination of these few colours will enable you to record most scenes fairly accurately. The other way of course is to just take one colour, and do a monochrome sketch like I do with my tonal paintings. BASIC SKETCH COLOURS Lamp Black / Burnt Sienna / Indian Red Or Cadmium Lemon / Raw Sienna / Alarizon Crimson / Phthalo Blue / Lamp Black / Burnt Sienna Or a combination of any of the following :Cobalt Blue / Cadmium Red / Cadmium Yellow Prussian Blue / Burnt Sienna / Lemon Yellow Ultramarine Blue / Crimson Alizarin / Raw Sienna Background try Paynes Grey / Yellow Ochre Remember that all colours are made up of just three primary colours RED—YELLOW AND BLUE So if your in a hurry, just grab those three colours. WHY THE CONFUSION ? Even though there is a vast array of weird and wonderful names like Alizarin, Coeruleum, Phthalo etc. (and I don‘t know about you, but I can‘t even pronounce most of them), they are all basically 3 colours, or combinations of them. SO THINK ABOUT COLOURS SIMPLY Whoever invented a colour called Hooker‘s Green No1 Dark … and why ? Just looking at a standard colour card, I see over 20 names for yellow, or variations of it for instance, and if you add to this, the fact that there seems no standards of colours between watercolour paint makers, it all only goes to confuse, both artists and beginners alike even more.

The only important thing to remember, when dealing with colour is to enjoy it ! It‘s only Colour after all …… whatever it‘s called ! What‘s in a name, as they say ? Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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17. LESSON 8—WHICH BRUSH TO USE FOR WHAT ? There is a vast array of watercolour brushes to choose from these days, and two main qualities broadly, synthetic and pure bristle. Apart from cheap brushes, for ancillary jobs like scrubbing out, painting paper for stretching, and applying masking fluid, my total number of brushes is 12 opposite. They comprise of :4 Flat Brushes of various sizes and qualities 6 Round Brushes several sizes and qualities 1 Rigger 1 Small Filbert For a beginner you could probably manage with 2 flat , 2 round and a rigger brush. Quite often, when I come to the end of a painting, I find that I have used every one of my 12 brushes, when it comes to washing them out. As a general rule, I use my brushes as follows, but there are exceptions :-

WHICH BRUSH TO USE WHERE ?

ROUND BRUSHES

RIGGER BRUSH

Used for applying washes Buildings, Walls, Roofs Windows, Doors, Stones and bricks Architecture

Used for generally applying paint to none hard edged items such as skies, land, trees and bushes.

Use for ships rigging, masts details on people animals and birds and general fine work and to sign work.

Used flat for gates, fences , masts, telegraphs poles and used on edge for trees, grasses and bushes.

Also useful for filling in areas and for accurate lifting off and mopping out in Skies and for general use

FLAT BRUSHES

FILBERT Not Shown but used for round edged bushes and stones

Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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17. LESSON 8—WHICH BRUSH TO USE FOR WHAT ? Continued To visualize exactly what each brush is capable of, I detail below, excerpts, notes and colour sketches, from my ‗TUITION WORKBOOK‘ that I use for students attending my Classes in Bulgaria.

ROUND BRUSHES

Small Round

Used for generally applying paint to none hard edged items such as skies and land.

Medium Round

Invaluable for trees & bushes. Also useful for filling in areas and for accurate lifting off and mopping out in skies. And for general use.

As it‘s name suggests, it‘s main use is for things like ships rigging and telegraph wire, though a perfectly steady hand is required, and I find I can get more convincing results with the edge of my flat brushes. It‘s suggested to stop breathing while you use it, seems a bit extreme to me! Useful for signing your work too.

Rigger The filbert is an under– rated handy little brush, I use for bushes and to suggest distant buildings like flats, where the edges, and shapes would be unclear, like in the distance and middle distance for instance.

Filbert Large Round FLAT BRUSHES

Small Flat

Used for applying washes to large areas. Also great for solid structures like buildings, roofs, doors and windows and architecture generally. Also surprisingly flexible on edge too, for gates, fences , masts, telegraphs poles and used on edge for trees, grasses and bushes. Can also be used for fir tree growths, used on an angle.

Large Flat Large Flat Medium Flat Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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17. LESSON 8—WHICH BRUSH TO USE FOR WHAT ? Continued Generally speaking, the bigger the job or area your painting, the bigger the brush you will need. The key to watercolour painting is speed, and that speed, will come with confidence. One of the great advantages over oils and acrylics, is the water solubility, which means it‘s quick and convenient. No paint drying in blobs, and unusable, no turps , and none of the smells or inconvenience, that you get with the other mediums. The only disadvantage, is that the paint has to be applied quickly, and confidently, and can only be ‗worked‘ on the paper for a few minutes, which I refer to as the ‗Golden Time‘. After that time, when the shine has gone from the paints surface you have to leave it alone to dry, before applying the next plane, or wash.

So choose the brush that will apply the paint to the paper, in the shortest possible time. In order to demonstrate the use of each of the brush types used on a painting, I thought it might be interesting for you to test your knowledge of the use of each brush type, on a painting of mine. So remember flat brushes for flat things, and round brushes for round things generally.

Leaves on this fir tree

The Sky

Slats on louvre windows Window Details

These Crosses

Painted Fresco These windows

These windows

These bushes

Signature

These lines on the paving

Lamp-post

The seated man

These tufts of grass

Karnobat Church—Bulgaria 2009 Now in Private Collection

I realise that you havn't yet been shown how to paint these items yet, but this little quiz , may check your understanding about what each brush can be used for. The answers are on the next page, and in some cases, there may be more that one correct answer, but I‘ll put on what I actually used, on the original painting. Good Luck Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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17. LESSON 8—WHICH BRUSH TO USE FOR WHAT ? Continued If you look after your watercolour brushes, they will last you a lifetime, so I put some care instructions here. The way to tell a good brush is to wet it, and put it in your mouth, your teeth and tongue will tell you how fine and smooth the bristles are. Generally, you get what you pay for with watercolour brushes, and whilst the performance of the bristles on a cheaper synthetic brush may be quite adequate, it‘s usually the paint finish on the handles that fail first, dropping annoying particles onto your precious paintings. I‘ve never understood why they just don‘t leave the handles unpainted ! If I were to add any more brushes to my collection, it would be a big mop brush for skies, and a good quality 2‘‘ hake.

Care of your Brushes NEVER USE THEM IN MASKING FLUID IT RUINS BRUSHES FOR FUN NEVER LEAVE BRUSHES STANDING IN WATER, IT CAN LOOSEN THE PAINT ON THE HANDLE AND PERMANENTLY BEND THE BRISTLES DON‘T LEAVE PAINT ON THEM 1. WASH OUT STRAIGHT AWAY 2. SQUEEZE WATER OUT GENTLY 3. DRY ON A PAPER TOWEL 4. ALLOW TO DRY NATURALLY. WHEN DRY, PUT IN YOUR MOUTH AND MOISTEN THE BRISTLES TO REFORM THE SHAPE . FLAT BRUSHES TO A CHISEL POINT ,AND ROUND BRUSHES, AND RIGGERS, TO A POINT WASH IN LUKE WARM WATER AND WASHING UP LIQUID, FROM TIME TO TIME.

LARGE ROUND

SMALL FLAT EDGE OF FLAT

RIGGER

RIGGER

RIGGER SMALL FLAT SMALL FLAT

MEDIUM ROUND

LARGE FLAT

SMALL ROUND

SMALL FLAT RIGGER

LARGE FLAT

I hope you enjoyed the little quiz, how did you do ? Did any surprise you ? I guess the ones that may have caught you out, were the grass on the bottom right, this effect is done with a relatively dry, flat brush, in an upward motion (circled). The other tricky one, is those windows, with the arched tops (circled). The reason is that you don‘t paint the spars, but the dark windows around them.

More on that later ….

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18. LESSON 9—THE THREE MAIN TECHNIQUES WASHES, DRY-BRUSH & DETAIL TECHNIQUE 1—WASHES

Pre wash

Some artists start by putting an overall colour wash over the whole paper to tint it before starting, and it adds atmosphere to a painting. In the example to the right, I wanted to depict the sunset, so I tinted the paper first, with a salmon pink wash, which I did the night before. The picture was in the series of tonal paintings, done in artificial light, and I simply used various tones of grey, pink, and brown. Many famous Artists have used this technique in the past including Turner who is famous for his yellow and blue pre washes. THE PRE-WASH

In the example of my painting, called ‗The Roof Garden Bourgas‘ (bottom right), I used an Yellow Ochre coloured pre-wash on the paper, before I sketched it. This is a lovely old elegant house, and I wanted the painting to be almost half finished, to give it a feeling of an Architectural Drawing. I also didn‘t want to detract from the comedy element of the subject matter, being the quirkiness of the ‗ad-hoc‘ DIY style roof garden itself. NOTICE HOW THE PRE-WASH LOOKS STRONGER ON THE LEFT ,THAN IN THE FINISHED PAINTING , ON THE RIGHT. YOU CAN BE BRAVER THAN YOU THINK, WITH THE STRENGTH OF COLOUR ON THESE WASHES.

The technique is to wash the paper in one colour or a combination of two ‗Sunset at The Marina Bar‘ colours. Bulgaria 2009 Now in Private Collection Sometimes just leaving a section un-tinted, revealing the white paper underneath, (whether intentional or not) can give some magical effects. As on the water in the above painting, and on the building below ,(circled). In watercolour painting, such things are called ‗Happy Accidents‘ , and is part of the sheer joy. The ‗trick‘ is, when it happens, don‘t be embarrassed by it, don‘t try and cover it up, or detract from it, with subsequent or adjacent painting, but use it to your advantage, emphasise it and enjoy it.

‗The Roof Garden‘ Bourgas—Bulgaria 2009

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18. LESSON 9—THE THREE MAIN TECHNIQUES Continued WASHES, DRY-BRUSH & DETAIL TECHNIQUE 1—WASHES

Flat Colour Wash

The fresh clean (none muddy) wash, is probably the hardest part to master for a beginner, but it is the signature for this freshest of painting medium, so needs to be mastered, and becomes second nature, with a little practise. Washes should be translucent, so you can see another wash underneath it. I like to use just 2 washes if I can capture it, as I think the effect can be overdone with more, and work comes to look like an oil or acrylic, or even have a photographic look, and I think that isn‘t the desired look in a watercolour. Occasionally I use a final shadow wash to indicate the shadow of a building or tree ‗out of shot‘ for foreground affect. FLAT COLOURED WASH HOW TO DO IT ? Mix your colour consistently, and quite strongly, and apply to dry paper, using a large round or flat brush. If you have surplus moisture, mop it out straight away, your aiming for an even coat of paint. Allow it to dry naturally on a flat board.

Graduated wash

This technique is used mainly in skies or in areas that ‗graduate‘ from light to dark or vice versa. It‘s the way of adding more paint, or water, to a wash, to dilute, or strengthen it, as you work up, or down the paper, to give a specific effect. If your board is tipped or held upside down, this type of graduated wash, can be made to look like fog or mist, it‘s great fun try it ! GRADUATED WASH HOW TO DO IT For Skies for example. Start at the top of a sloping board, with your paint mixed consistently, and applied to wet, or dry paper, using a big round, or flat brush. Work quickly and in big horizontal or slightly arched bold strokes, and add more water to your mix as you work towards the horizon. Blend the transition area, between dark and light, so it changes gradually. NOW LEAVE IT ALONE TO WORK IT‘S MAGIC ! Just describing this process makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, with anticipation and excitement, sad I know ! During the time when the paint and paper are ‘working their magic‘ it‘s possible to manipulate, and steer the paint, where you want it, and all manner of sheets of rain, mist, fog and storms are possible, just by tipping your board in different directions.

A WORD OF WARNING THOUGH Try not to steer the wet paint towards areas that look dry, and past their ‗Golden Time‘ as this can lead to watermarking, and if you get any runs or drips, just mop them up, at the border of the painting, with kitchen roll or a moist clean paint brush. Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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18. LESSON 9—THE THREE MAIN TECHNIQUES Continued WASHES, DRY-BRUSH & DETAIL TECHNIQUE 1—WASHES Flat Colour Wash and Graduated Wash These are two examples of these washes, that demonstrate the different effects that they can have on a painting, as well as the palette you choose too. Though both scenes are similar in many ways, a cornfield in Summer, they were painted at different times, but are no more than a mile apart geographically. FLAT COLOUR WASH

GRADUATED WASH

On this very Hot Summer‘s Day there was an Azure, almost Mediterranean, cloudless sky, and the corn was almost ready to Harvest. I was struck by the contrast in colour, between the sky and the corn, and wanted to try and capture that feeling.

This cart track joins two villages, and I was on my mountain bike, when I saw this scene, in the height of Summer. The track meanders across the fields, and the only sound I could hear was birdsong, high in the sky.

This was a very simple scene, that I wanted to portray very simply, and honestly, and the flat colour-washed sky gave the feeling of peace and tranquillity I wanted to capture, so painted the sky with a flat wash, and l dried it flat too.

The graduated wash, provided the perfect foil, to the wispy clouds above. Notice how it gets weaker near the horizon, achieved by adding more water to the mix, as I worked down the paper, before finally mopping out the clouds, with my big round brush.

‗Summer Cornfield‘ Cherkovo Bulgaria—2009

‗Track to Detelina‘ Bulgaria—2009

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18. LESSON 9—THE THREE MAIN TECHNIQUES Continued WASHES, DRY-BRUSH & DETAIL TECHNIQUE 1—WASHES Flat Colour Wash and Graduated Wash Most beginners use too little paint, and then overdo things, with that final dollop of water (just for good measure) which gives a wishy washy, uncontrollable mess. This then leads to excessive cockling, and tell tale water marks (in the trade called Cauliflowers), or blots. Loading the brush, with just the right amount of liquid, be it paint, or water, is something that only comes with experience, and just ‗getting out there and doing it‘ ! Here are some examples, in my own paintings, of the effects you can get with these ‗The Redundant Workhorse‘ Cherkovo—Bulgaria 2009

‗More Snow on the way‘ Cherkovo—Bulgaria 2009

‗Deere John‘ Cherkovo Harvest Time Bulgaria 2009

In this painting of the abandoned Russian Gaz Truck in our village. It‘s located in a valley and I wanted to emphasise the valley and the track and it‘s linear look. So I manipulated the sky wash to end up with a shaft of light down the centre of the painting.

This snowy view in our village, was captured after one heavy fall of snow. There then followed a period of heavy rain before more snow, and this was the last of the sun, before the rain hit the village.

I happened upon this view, from a distance thinking it was a fire. On closer inspection, on this very hot Summer day, I found a fleet of John Deere combine Harvesters, at work.

I achieved this by holding the board vertically and shaking the board so the wet paint came down the paper vertically. I also graduated the wash so it is lighter at the horizon.

The sheets of rain portrayed in the heavy, rain laden sky, were achieved, by tipping the board at an angle, so the wet paint looked like the rain. When it had moved enough I put the board down flat to dry naturally, which stops the movement of paint.

The first pre-wash was graduated side ways by holding the board on it‘s side. I wanted to portray the dust cloud, and how it could blot out the sun on the right hand side of the painting. The sky wash was then manipulated in the same manner, to achieve finished effect.

two types of wash.

Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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18. LESSON 9—THE THREE MAIN TECHNIQUES Continued WASHES, DRY-BRUSH & DETAIL TECHNIQUE 1—WASHES The ‗Wet into Wet‘ Technique I am excited just mentioning this section to you. It‘s the part of the medium of Watercolour Painting that is the most exciting, as an Artist, and the technique that brings most pleasure to a viewing audience too, it seems. It‘s that unpredictable, ‗something‘ that happens, it‘s when things just, well, ‗happen‘ when two blobs of colour fuse together, in an almost random way, as a mere mortal we can but look in awe ! ‗That looks like distant trees‘, ‗that looks like mist, or smoke from a distant fire‘ or ‗it looks like the sun is just coming from behind the clouds‘, and all manner of wonders being created, while you look on in wonder, ‗did I do that‘ ? In short ‗Wet in Wet‘ is the epitome of Watercolour Painting, that cannot be equalled in beauty, by any other painting medium, and why I, amongst many before me, chose it.

‗Bluebell Wood‘ 2009

‗Misty Lakeside‘ 2009

‗Wall and Tree Study‘ 2009—Now in Private Collection

Wet into wet is the most intuitive, and expressive forms of Watercolour Painting, and probably the most rewarding, though the most difficult to describe here. The good news is, that it‘s probably the easiest and fastest way to paint. None of the works above took more that 30 minutes from start to finish. The reason is, as the name suggests it‘s all done ‗wet in wet‘ in one go, and apart from those darks and details, it all happens in usually just one ‗GOLDEN TIME‘ ! In other words, in the time it takes for the paper to get wet, to the paper drying !

The moisture of the paper, the strength of the colour, and the choice of colours, is the key with this most magical of all the Watercolour techniques. Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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18. LESSON 9—THE THREE MAIN TECHNIQUES Continued TECHNIQUE 1—WASHES The ‗Wet into Wet‘ Technique—Continued HOW TO DO IT ? The technique to do it, is really simple, though the results are usually completely unpredictable, which is of course, what makes it so exciting, and such fun. It best suits subjects that are, lets say ‗less defined‘ and ‗dreamlike‘, either from views, or from your imagination. ‗Wet in Wet‘ captures atmosphere, and mood beautifully. WITH THIS TECHNIQUE, SPEED IS OF THE ESSENCE, BECAUSE YOU LITERALLY ONLY HAVE THE TIME FROM WETTING THE PAPER, TO THE TIME YOU GET TO THE END OF THE ‗GOLDEN TIME‘ TO FINISH IT. SO WE ARE LITERALLY TALKING A FEW MINUTES, DEPENDING ON DRYING CONDITIONS. STEP 1 Roughly work out what it is your going to paint, and lightly sketch it on your dry paper, and prepare your palette of colours mixing them quite strongly, and ensuring you have enough. Try not knowing what your going

to paint, as I did with the two examples on this page. I decided what I would make them into, once I‘d painted them !

STEP 2 On pre–stretched watercolour paper, (remembering that this is the wettest of all the techniques) liberally wet your paper all over, with clean water, using a large flat or round brush (I use a 2‘‘ paint brush from a decorating shop). Though leaving some dry areas, adds to the contrast between the resulting hard edges, and the fluidity and softness, of the wet in wet areas. Ensure that you don‘t have any puddles anywhere, but if you do remove by ‗mopping up‘ with a moist brush.

‗Corn Husks‘

STEP 3 Working quickly, paint bold stripes or shapes randomly in a couple of colours and blend them together. Now while this paint merges together and ‗does it‘s magic‘, add another colour into the mixture, of colours. Now pick up your board, and move it around, to manipulate the paint to where you want it to go. If you are painting something less random and specific, leave your board flat until it dries. You don‘t have to use brushes to add the colours, splashing with another colour or ink (circled), or clear water, works well too. If you get any runs or puddles just mop them out as before, but before it dries.

‗Misty Lakeside‘

It is possible to just paint and splash your favourite colours on paper then decide what it looks like later. Try splashing with water or salt too and see what happens. Both the pictures here were painted in that way !

STEP 4 Once everything is hard dry, add some highlights and darks if you want to, and that‘s all there is to it, easy !

Just stand back, admire your creativity, and have lots of fun ! Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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18. LESSON 9—THE THREE MAIN TECHNIQUES Continued TECHNIQUE 2 DRY-BRUSH As the name suggests ‗drybrush‘ is just that. Applying paint from an almost dry brush. It is a useful technique to add texture, usually in foregrounds, to suggest things like earth, sand, snow and textures in general, either natural or man–made. The technique works best on rough textured paper, which is one reason I use the paper I do, which is called Bockingford Rough 300gm (140lb). Because I like to record decay and crumbling buildings, this is one of my favourite of techniques, because it can duplicate the texture of, say a rough wall, or a rusty piece of tin.

Drybrush is also a really nice way to paint water, and gives the illusion of those areas of water that look textured, like the wind is whipping the water up, in the distance.

Drybrush is the best, and traditional way to re-create textures in your paintings, and is completely controllable with the brush. Other ‗‘tricks‘ like wax can be used, as also seen on the right , (circled) but it‘s unpredictable, because when you put it on, you can‘t see where it is. Also the shine of the wax will always be a part of your picture and can‘t be removed afterwards, which isn‘t always a good thing.

One of my favourite ways of using dry-brush, is to depict shadows and texture on snow, and winter scenes. The areas left in the hollows, where the paint doesn‘t touch, looks like the snow sparkling, and glistening in the sun. It can also be used to great effect on beach scenes too, as it looks like sand. In fact anywhere you want texture, try Drybrush.

HOW TO DO IT

Quite simply, you load your brush, then keep painting on a scrap piece of paper, or the border of you painting, until very little paint comes off, then lightly apply to your painting.

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18. LESSON 9—THE THREE MAIN TECHNIQUES Continued TECHNIQUE 3 RIGGER AND DETAIL Originally, I was going to call this section ‗Rigger‘, but then I realised that when painting the sharp details, in my pictures, that I use all manner of items to do that. So I suppose it ought to be called simply ‗HOW TO PAINT DETAILS‘. The details in paintings are usually the things first noticed by the viewer, as they are the sharpest focused items. They contrast with the other techniques, particularly the wet in wet technique, as they provide sharpness against the softness of that technique. So the mast on the ship, or the cross on the church, against a soft sky, are the effects that combine, to please the eye.

These fine details I refer to as ‗sharps‘ do exactly that, they sharpen and define . A painting that is all soft and cloudy, with no contrast, can be a little monotonous and boring. But one with sharps, has real interest & character. It‘s usually in the foreground, that this detail comes into it‘s own, when TOOLS OF THE TRADE one is working forward, Allow me to introduce some of and getting more detailed, the many items I use to paint as you get nearer the eye. details in my paintings, This can donr by using from left to right dark paint, or ink.

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

Sharpened stick Cocktail stick Skewer Rigger Sharpened end of brush Dip Pen Quill

Notice how the stick is thicker at one end than the other, and also, how I‘ve sharpened the WHEN TO USE WHICH OF end of one of my brushes, to THE 3 TECHNIQUES ? use as a drawing tool. Generally speaking SKIES & DISTANCE Wet into Wet MIDDLE DISTANCE Wet or Drybrush FOREGROUND Drybrush and Details

These ‗sharps‘ were done using the sharpened stick, dipped in Black Indian Ink. See how that sharpness contrasts, with the wet painted background.

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19. LESSON 10—OTHER TECHNIQUES, AND NEAT TRICKS At the outset, I know that some of these ‗more advanced‘ techniques meet with disapproval, with the purist watercolour connoisseurs, who only like to see watercolours in the ‗pure‘ techniques of washes drybrush and rigger. Only you can decide if that‘s for you, or not.

―Personally I use every weapon in my armoury as and when required. Never having studied the ‗rules‘ , gives me an excuse not to know about them, and leaves me free of any constraints, and gives me the freedom to express myself, as I see fit.‖ Amongst these ‗tricks and techniques‘ we will be looking at in this Lesson are such things as :‗Resists‘ such as Masking Fluid and Wax, Spattering, Scratching, Lifting out and Mopping out with sponges and special tools and loo roll. We will also be working with Salt, sharpened sticks and torn pieces of card.

DESCRIPTION

METHOD

MASKING FLUID

USE AN OLD BRUSH, OR KNIFE BLADE, TO PAINT ON AT THE START OF YOUR PICTURE. INVALUABLE WHEN YOU WANT SOMETHING BRIGHT OR WHITE AGAINST A DARK BACKGROUND PEEL OFF WHEN YOUR PAINT IS DRY

SCRATCHING

WAX RESIST A RESIST IS JUST SOMETHING THAT WATERCOLOUR PAINT WON‘T STICK TO, SO ‗RESISTS‘ IT

SPATTER

SALT

PICTURE

ONCE YOUR PAINTING IS HARD DRY USE A CRAFT KNIFE BLADE TO CAREFULLY SCRATCH ON DARK BACKGROUNDS, FOR GRASSES AND THE LIKE BUT BEWARE IT‘S ADDICTIVE ! DRAW ON YOUR PAINTING WHERE YOU DON‘T WANT THE PAINT TO STICK. CUT A CANDLE INTO A NIB SHAPE FOR ACCURACY. DIFFICULT TO SEE UNTIL THE END BUT GOOD TO DUPLICATE TEXTURES BUT DRYBRUSH IS MORE CONTROLLABLE TAP PAINT OR WATER FROM ONE BRUSH ONTO THE HANDLE OF ANOTHER, TO SPLASH, BUT PRACTICE FIRST ,AWAY FROM YOUR PAINTING. NICE EFFECT DURING WET INTO WET AND FOR RANDOM FLOWERS IN FIELDS ETC. SCATTER SALT ONTO DAMP SURFACE EFFECT IS AFFECTED BY DAMPNESS OF YOUR WASH (SEE PICS) TRY STANDARD SALT & ROCK SALT GOOD FOR MODERN FLORAL PICTURES NICE THOUGH ADDICTIVE !

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19. LESSON 10—OTHER TECHNIQUES AND NEAT TRICKS Continued If you recall, at the start of my book, I mentioned that with Watercolour Painting, you had to pre-work out your highlights, at the very beginning of your painting. Well, this isn't strictly true, as it‘s possible to do this at the end of the painting process, using several of the techniques below, and on the previous page. The thing to bear in mind, with these additional techniques, is that they can be regarded as a bit gimmicky, so restraint has to be shown. So it‘s a case of ‗LESS IS MORE‘ though with some of them they are definitely addictive, such as scratching. The thing to do, is mix them up, and use them sparingly. Don‘t be tempted to use any one technique as your signature, as this will make your paintings predictable, and ‘samey‘. Overleaf, I show you a montage of my pictures, see if you can identify the techniques, both standard, and the ones on these last two pages.

How many are there ? Answers by e-mail, please. There is a prize for the closest.

DESCRIPTION

METHOD

MOPPING OUT

USE A MOIST BRUSH TO LIFT OUT COLOUR FROM PAPER USEFUL FOR CREATING HIGHLIGHTS AND ON CLOUDS AND FOR CREATING SMOKE AND MIST AND OTHER ATMOSPHERIC EFFECTS

SCRUBBING OUT

USE BRUSH, TISSUE OR BUD TO LIFT AND GENTLY SCRUB PAPER TO LIFT PAINT CAN BE USED WITH A BRUSH TO DENOTE SUNS RAYS OR WITH A TISSUE TO REPRESENT SUN OR MOON CAN ALSO BE USED FOR STENCILS

POINTED STICK

USE A STICK TO EITHER APPLY PAINT, OR REMOVE IT, OR TO DENOTE LIGHT THINGS AGAINST A DARK BACKGROUND. YOU CAN USE WOOD OR TWIGS SHARPENED OR A PAINTBRUSH, COCKTAIL STICK ,QUILL, OR NIB

CARDBOARD STRIPS

TEAR CARDBOARD STRIPS INTO RANDOM SHAPES, AND DIP INTO PAINT, AND APPLY IN SHORT STROKES, ALTERING THE SIDE USED, TO AVOID ANYTHING REGULAR OR PATTERNS. USE TO REPRESENT ROCKS ETC. THEN SIMPLY PAINT THE SHADOW SIDE.

SPONGING

PICTURE

USE RANDOMLY TORN ,NATURAL SEA SPONGE, TO SPONGE PAINT OR WATER, ON OR OFF. CAN BE USED TO FORM STONE, OR CLOUDS, JUST CHANGE THE DIRECTION REGULARLY, TO GET A COMPLETELY RANDOM EFFECT

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19. LESSON 10—OTHER TECHNIQUES AND NEAT TRICKS Continued Just before we finish this section, I though it might be worthy to note that the effects of both spattering and salt, vary, depending on how damp the paper is, and I add some photo‘s to demonstrate this. As you can see, the difference is quite marked, and you can use this to your advantage, depending on the effect your trying to achieve. TIME

STRAIGHT AWAY

30 SEC

1 MINUTE

2 MINUTES

3 MINUTES

30 SEC

2 MINS

ROCK SALT

This is the final page of this lesson, and just for some fun, see if you can see now many of those techniques I have used, in these paintings of mine ?

Answers by e-mail please. Good Luck

WATER SPATTER ON DAMP PAPER

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20. LESSON 11—AVOIDING MUD & KEEPING IT CLEAN AND FRESH Before we commence with the lessons on painting all the elements that go to make up a landscape, so we can bring it all together. Finally I just wanted to emphasise the vital information, to enable you to keep your paintings clean, and fresh, and your washes, luminescent and bright.

KEEP IT CLEAN Avoiding a muddy and an overworked look in your paintings, is crucial to their beauty. These are the key points to abide by, if your to avoid the dreaded mud ! 

TRY TO LIMIT THE COLOURS IN A MIX TO 4

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NEVER MESS ABOUT WITH YOUR PAINTINGS ONCE THE SHINE HAS GONE

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DURING THIS ‗GOLDEN TIME‘ JUST LEAVE THINGS ALONE, HOWEVER TEMPTING IT IS

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CHANGE YOUR WATER REGULARLY, & USE 2 POTS

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KEEP YOUR BRUSHES WASHED OUT

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KEEP YOUR PAINT POTS CLEAN, AND WASH OUT DURING PAINTING

The delicate clean luminescent washes of ‗Cormorants near Cherni Vrah‘- Bulgaria 2009 These two paintings below were probably recycled as Greetings Cards but I wanted to include them to show you the difference between their lack of clarity and the painting above.

The Eleven Lessons so far, have hopefully given you the background knowledge, on the theory of watercolour painting. We can now proceed with painting the elements used in landscape painting . SO LET‘S PAINT LANDSCAPES !

Understanding how to avoid muddy overworked paintings, is a big part of your understanding of the medium of Watercolour Painting. By way of encouragement I thought I would include a couple of my earlier paintings that were ‗recycled‘ ! Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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21. LESSON 12—PAINTING SKIES I was always told to ‗PAINT A SKY EVERY DAY‘, as it‘s different each day, at different times of the day, and also in each direction you look at it. THE FIRST THING TO DECIDE, IS HOW IMPORTANT THE SKY IS IN YOUR PICTURE ? This will then guide you, as to which type of sky to paint. Generally, if the subject matter is complicated or fussy, I would recommend you keep the sky simple. If the subject matter is simple, then you can go for a more vigorous sky, to add interest and movement. As a general rule, I decide at the outset, how dominant and interesting, I want to make my skies. If you take the example of ‗The Rock Pool—For Julie ‗ on the right you can see that I wanted to portray a big important, Summer Sky. By contrast, the foreground and characters in the picture are placed very low down, and painted very simply, to emphasise the sky. Bearing in mind (but not dogmatically so) the compositional 1/3rd rule, you decide if the emphasis will be on the foreground , with the sky playing a lesser role (usually seen in townscapes, or foreground textural studies) or if it is to be the main focal point of the painting, like with a bleak moorland scene, or a seascape, like we have here, on the Right. By contrast, below you can see how the sky is very much less important in this picture, because the main focal point is on the foreground courtyard and the fountain. SO WHY ALL THE FUSS ? Put simply, nothing quite epitomises the freshness, and luminosity of the medium of Watercolour Painting like a well executed sky. Skies can be intimidating to beginners with all that virgin paper, sometimes taking up to 2/3rds of the finished painting, or even more! The first thing to consider is perspective. Quite surprising with Skies I know. The theory is this …. The cloud above your head is the biggest, but as they get further away, they look smaller and smaller, eventually usually merging into each other. Even a cloudless sky has principles of perspective, to apply to it, in that the colour above you is quite deep, and as you work down towards the horizon it gets paler, and paler. In addition, a Sky can look completely different at one side of a landscape to the other. To use this in your work, varying the colour from one side to the other, adds interest, variety and movement to a finished painting. Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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THE SECRET TO A GREAT SKY IS …  WORK FAST  KEEP A WET EDGE  THEN LEAVE IT ALONE, TO DO ‗IT‘S STUFF‘  BE BOLD WITH COLOUR (as it always dries lighter). I quite often tip my board, to manipulate the drying paint, on the wet paper, to copy the angles of sheets of rain for example but just remember your ‗Golden Time ‗,of just a few minutes, and stop messing when that time approaches. IF YOU CONTINUE TO WORK IT ALWAYS TURNS MUDDY SO IT IS ABSOLUTELY CRUCIAL

HOW TO GET THE EFFECT OF FALLING RAIN Gently tapping your board, and moving it,by altering the angle, makes heavy rain clouds look like they are sheets of rain. You can only do this for a short time though. THEN LEAVE IT TO DRY FLAT, NATURALLY.

There are several types of cloud formations, all of which have their own characteristics. The Names are Latin and they helpfully describe, and give hints, to the way of painting them. ‗Cirrus‘ meaning curl or fringe. ‗Stratus‘ meaning spread over area. ‗Cumulus‘ meaning heap or pile and ‗Nimbus‘ meaning rain bearing. CLOUDLESS SKY Though this sounds really simple it‘s actually one of the hardest to achieve. The reason is that the flat wash has to be perfect to carry it off, which involves real care. This type of sky suits Summer scenes and can be used where the sky dominates the painting.

HOW TO DO IT ? Choose, and mix your colours carefully, and ensure that all the pigment is well mixed in, and of an even consistency. You can be quite bold with colours, for this type of sky. Now wet your pre-stretched paper, on your board (which should be tipped on a slight angle), but not so wet as to cause puddles. Ensure you have more than enough paint than you need. Using either a big round, large flat or normal paintbrush, apply your paint, in big overlapping sweeps of paint. You can either paint in horizontal strokes, or ones with a slight arc, going down at each side, which will immediately blend together. As you approach the horizon, weaken your paint mix slightly by adding a little more water to your mix, so it goes lighter at the bottom. Lay it flat and let it dry naturally, and mop up any surplus water on the painting, with a brush, or if around the border, mop with kitchen towel, BEFORE YOU REACH THE ‗GOLDEN TIME‘, which you can check, by looking at it against the light. Once the paint loses it‘s shine, it‘s time to leave it alone. FINALLY,LAY YOUR BOARD FLAT, AND LET IT DRY, NATURALLY. Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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Painting a ‗Cirrus‘ Type sky meaning curl or fringe This is one of the most attractive of the types of skies, and one of the easiest to paint. Painting this type of sky can be done by painting onto dry paper, or by moistening it first with clean water or a combination of wet and dry. It‘s also possible to pre- tint the paper, and let it hard dry, which adds more atmosphere. HOW TO DO IT ? Dampen your paper or start dry, or try a bit of both. Damp paper gives a softer sky, working on dry paper gives you harder edges. Using a fairly strong mix of paint, using say Cobalt Blue and Ultramarine Blue as here, with just a touch of Light Red, to take the coolness off the blue paint. Start in one corner, and altering the angle of the brush, paint down diagonally, leaving gaps of unpainted paper to suggest the light parts of the sky. While the paint and paper are still wet, wipe your brush moist dry on kitchen towel, and ‗lift out‘ clouds using a rolling motion. Add a small amount of water to soften any edges. The key is for it to be completely random, if you spot any areas that look ‗samey‘ adjust the shape, of them, using more paint or water, but don‘t go too wet. For more clouds, whilst the paint is still damp, screw tissue or kitchen roll into a ball, and mop out ‗clouds‘, again changing the shape of the tissue, and the direction you use it. The secret, is to work quickly, before you reach the ‗Golden Time‘. If the paper does dry, then leave it alone, and let it hard dry, using your hairdryer on a slow speed. There is no limit to how many washes you can put over another, but the key is to ensure that each is perfectly dry, before adding the next one. This type of Cirrus sky, suits subjects where some interest is required, but without it being a dominant part of the finished painting.

Use round brushes to paint these types of skies, as the name Cirrus suggests. Use the size, dependant upon the size of your painting, and change the brush sizes, during the painting of the sky, which will give it more interest and variety. Please note that I am left-handed, and you may find it easier to work from left to right. Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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Painting a ‗Stratus‘ type sky meaning spread over area This type of sky, is simply one between a cloudless sky, and a Cirrus one, and just has less details and definition. At any stage of painting skies, you can stop anytime, before adding more detail, layers and shadows. If you like it leave it alone. To put it another way, a plain sky with more detail, becomes a Stratus sky, and with more details, becomes a Cirrus sky, and with even more detail, it become a Cumulus sky, and finally, with darker colours and more drama, becomes a Cumulus Nimbus sky.

Painting a ‗Cumulus‘ Type sky meaning heap or pile These are those cotton wool type skies, usually associated with bright sunny, Summers Days. HOW TO DO IT ? Use you biggest round brush, as before, but be bolder, and more accentuated, with your brush strokes . After checking the direction of light on the arrow on the border of your painting, add shadows to the underside, and shadow side, of some of the clouds.

Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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21. LESSON 12—PAINTING SKIES

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Painting a ‗Cumulus Nimbus‘ Sky meaning heap or pile and rain bearing This is the most dramatic of skies, usually associated with thunderstorms, and the most dramatic effects of light, and the one well suited to Watercolour Painting.

Consider using Masking Fluid for your highlights, such as these seagulls below or the lights on the pier

Painting these stormy skies gives dramatic effects, and the most opportunities for contrast, and counter-change, as circled above. Some Artists such as Ashley Jackson, from my beloved Yorkshire, have made these heavy types of skies his trademark. HOW TO DO IT ? It‘s a further development of the skies so far, but only now using more dramatic colours such as Lamp Black, Payne‘s Grey, Light Red and even Burnt Umber. Using such dramatic dark colours, gives fantastic opportunities to emphasise ‘lights‘ in a painting, such as the sun, the moon, street lights and white gulls against black skies. Add plenty of dark shadows to the underside of the clouds, whilst they are still wet, and consider tipping your board for even more dramatic effects. Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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21. LESSON 12—PAINTING SKIES

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CREATING OTHER EFFECTS IN YOUR SKIES It‘s possible ,and very desirable, in Watercolour Painting, to capture nature and mood, and also dramatic effects, such as the sun, moon, sunsets and as you have already seen, storms. Most of these other techniques, involve some kind of ‗lifting out‘ or ‗mopping out ‗ of damp paint, using all manner of items like brushes, tissue, cotton wool, and even cotton wool buds. During the time after you have applied your wet paint, you have a few minutes (depending on drying conditions), to lift out paint, to achieve these dramatic effects. HOW TO DO IT ? MOONS AND SUNS On damp paper, and freshly applied paint, like this sunset, simply screw up kitchen roll into a round wad, and using a twisting motion, lift out the colour to reveal the white, or tinted paper beneath. Soften the edges with a damp brush, for a softer sun, or moon. Some ‗bleeding in‘ from the surrounding paint, usually makes a more natural look, as it would be in nature. You can also achieve similar results, using a brush, or cotton wool bud, to mop up the coloured paint. SUNS OR MOONS RAYS (circled below) Use any of the items above, to remove straight lines, radiating from the centre of the Sun or Moon. Try and vary the thickness of the rays, as they would be in nature. Pressing harder, or softer, with any of these ‗lifting off‘ techniques, gives varying, and more interesting results. Also try using masking fluid, to paint your sun or moon. Let it dry thoroughly ,paint over it, then when the paint is dry, peel off the rubbery solution, with your clean finger, or a putty rubber, to reveal the white paper underneath.

‗Lifting out‘ using

above a moist brush, and right, a cotton wool bud. Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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22. LESSON 13—PAINTING LAND Like skies, painting land can be intimidating, to a beginner, simply due to the amount of space it can take up on the paper typically, 1/3rd or even 2/3rds of the painting, depending on the viewpoint, and composition. When painting land, you have to depict it‘s shape, it‘s bulk, it‘s geology (what it‘s made of) and how it‘s ‘clothed‘. In other words is it earth, rock, sand, pebbles, grass, crops, or cliffs for example. It‘s geology, is usually an indicator of the type of brush you would use to depict it. For instance in the 2 examples on the right, show a combination of rolling pasture land and outcrops of rocks. A round brush would be used for the hills, and a flat brush used, for the rocks. The colours and shadows are the things that give the subject reality, and believability, by giving them a three dimensional quality. The ‗Wet into Wet technique‘ of painting darker colour into a wet wash is extensively used in accurately portraying land mass. In addition the rules of recession from Lesson 6 are imperative, when painting land, and as you recall, assumes a blue-ness in more distant land, than in the foreground. The technique is to start less defined, and cooler in colour, using smaller brushes in the background, then change to bigger brushes, and stronger colours as you move forward into the fore-ground. Remembering that cool colours recede (go back), and warm colours advance, (come forward), see circled left. The cliffs in the background, and foreground, were painted with round brushes to denote their bulk, with darks added to the wet wash to form the shadows. The light from this scene was coming from the top left so shadow was added to the right of the rock masses.

‗Wet into Wet‘ Technique, and a combination of all of your types of brushes, will give you convincing looks in your land, whether fields, cliffs, or rolling hills. Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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Continued

There are some exceptions to your selection of brushes, when painting land, that can be quite surprising. Like the example to the right, for instance. Normally you would expect to paint this scene (of gently undulating farm land), by using a round brush. But because it has a crop of cereal on it which grows vertically, and the shadows on the top are horizontal swathes of colour. Both vertical and horizontals, were painted using a wide flat brush, in the directions indicated by the arrows. The far distant hills, were painted with a small round brush, and notice how the grey blue colour, makes them appear further way. Here is another example of a similar scene, but also notice how the flat of the field is left almost unpainted, just a few simple upward brush marks to suggest the stubble after the combine harvester had cut the drop. It‘s also possible to suggest sloping distant fields, simply by applying the paint in the direction of the field‘s slope. HOW TO DO IT ? STEP 1 Firstly, draw your scene roughly on your paper so you know which areas are land, then split the area into ‘planes ‘ if the scene is suitable. As previously seen on the lesson on recession. unpainted area Try and keep your drawing fairly light, and to a minimum, as it‘s likely that, as this is a wet area, and you may want to remove all the pencil marks, at the end of the painting, so the less you put on now, and the lighter you apply it, the easier it will be later on. STEP 2 Start with the furthest ‗plane ‗ away from you, and using a blue/grey, weakish mix of say Ultramarine and Paynes Grey, on a small round brush, carefully paint distant hills, being careful not to paint over the nearer hills, and sections of land. If you do, simply mop out, using clean water on a dampish brush, to mop up the over-painted area. Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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22. LESSON 13—PAINTING LAND

Continued

STEP 2 contd. Whilst this first section of land is still damp, you have the opportunity to add shadows to the distant hills, and also any other features, like trees for instance. Do this by carefully adding a slightly stronger paint, into the original hill colour. It‘s also possible to add misty effects too ,while the paint and paper are still wet & workable.

Adding mist effects to a damp wash by lifting colour out, but leave the tops sharp.

To do this, wash your brush out in clean water, wipe it until it‘s just slightly moist, then lift out the paint from the bottom of the ‗plane‘, which will then look like mist in a valley, but remember to leave the tops of the hills fairly sharp, against the sky colour.

Now dry this first land ‗plane‘ thoroughly, with a hair dryer on slow speed. If you paint one plane without drying in between they will bleed into each other, though this too, can lead to some interesting and unexpected ‗happy accidents‘.

TOP TIP It‘s possible to carry on painting the next ‘plane‘ if your painting outside say, by leaving small gaps, between each plane. STEP 3 Once the distant plane is dry, mix your paint for your middle distance, ensuring it is stronger in tone (in other words more paint) than the further one. It is possible to reverse this contrast, if say, you wanted the distant plane to be sunlit and the foreground to be in the shadow of a thundercloud, or under a tree, for example. SUN

Now fill in the area to be painted, using a flat wash, on a medium round brush. Now, bearing in mind the direction of the light source, here shown top right (indicated by the arrow), add ‗darks‘ to the shadow sides of the land, (here on the hill circled), and lift highlights from the light side of the hill, by gently mopping up the paint, with a clean, but slightly moist brush. Blend these areas together, with a slightly moist brush, to avoid any harsh edges. TOP TIP

ALWAYS ENSURE THAT THE PAINT YOU ADD, TO ANOTHER WET WASH, IS ALWAYS STRONGER THAN THE PAINT YOUR GOING ON TOP OF. IF YOU DON‘T IT RESULTS IN TIDE MARKS OF COLOUR, CALLED ‘CAULIFLOWERS‘ ! Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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STEP 4 Now move forward on the same ‗plane‘ and strengthen your paint, using more blue, black or brown. Paint your next adjoining area, whilst the first is still damp. You need to work fairly quickly with these wet techniques, so I would suggest you have your paints already mixed, and in sufficient quantities, so you don‘t have to break off once you‘ve started. I generally don‘t manipulate this wet paint by lifting or tipping my board as I would with a sky say. Instead I leave it to dry flat. Whilst the paint is still damp, and before the working time passes, you can add tracks, shadows, and undulations, using your darker paint mix. PAINTING OTHER THINGS At the start of this section, I mentioned that it‘s possible to almost pre work out what brush you would need, to duplicate a certain element, in a landscape, and some examples are shown below. LAWNS Simply using your flat brushes, in alternating light and dark stripes, not surprisingly duplicates the passes of a lawnmower, on this lawn. PATHS, SLABS AND ROADS As you can also see on the right the same technique, with the flat brush was used to form the paving slabs and even the gaps in between. The important things with these, is to ensure your perspective is good, and that you keep your brush at a consistent angle . Use a light pencil, and even a ruler, if you want to check, before you start painting. On the example on the right, the slabs show a slight curve, as they would to drain water away, all helping to give you a convincing look, to your portrayal of these elements, in your landscapes. UNDULATIONS IN SNOW Undulations in Snow, are simply depicted, just with the use of shadow colour, on a round brush. Just mix a tone from the sky colour, usually with a blue-ish tinge. Using this technique on wet paper, look like slushy puddles, but the undulations look best, when painted using the dry-brush technique. Just be aware of the direction of the light and make sure the shadow sides are consistent. Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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Here are some more examples, using the techniques described. See if you can guess which brushes were used on each. The answers are at the bottom of the page. 2.

1.

3.

4.

TOP TIP To ensure your lands are interesting, mix up your wet and dry techniques , and this will add variety and movement to your landscapes. ANSWER TO QUIZ ALL WERE PAINTED WITH ROUND BRUSHES, APART FROM NUMBER 3, WHICH WAS PAINTED WITH A FLAT BRUSH. THE RULE IS -SOFT LAND THINGS IE FIELDS, USE A ROUND BRUSH, HARD THINGS IE ROCKS, FLAT BRUSH.

Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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23. LESSON 14—PAINTING WATER AND REFLECTIONS Just writing the title of this Chapter excites me ! In my opinion, this is one of those elements in a painting best suited to the lovely medium of Watercolour Painting. Though it looks difficult to do, it is actually one of the easiest, though there are some golden rules that you have to follow to carry off the illusion in your paintings.

AND THE MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL, IS THIS ONE

WATER IS ALWAYS PERFECTLY FLAT AND NEVER GOES UPHILL OR DOWNHILL You may notice a lot of emphasis on the above statement, and it‘s not without good reason, trust me. Funnily in most circumstances, water depicted in watercolour paintings, and the nicest subjects, usually involve fairly calm water, and their reflections. There is a calmness, about calm water in a painting, and it is also very popular, with the buying public too. The water is usually nothing more that one single, slightly tinted wash, or even unpainted, or by using pre-tinted paper. It‘s actually the very few subtle marks on your water, that will give you convincing water, whether lakes, rivers, the sea, or even puddles. Quite simply, once your sky colour has been chosen, your water will be the same colour, as it‘s a reflection of it. TOP TIP

When I know I am painting a water scene, I always keep the original mix from the sky, and sometimes mix twice as much as I need. I can then duplicate the colour in the reflections again later in the painting. It‘s important for it to be a pretty accurate copy of it, for obvious reasons. Wet sand, rain soaked pavement, puddles, and wet cobbled streets, are also amongst my favourite subjects involving water and reflections, that I love to paint, in my own watercolours. Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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23. LESSON 14—PAINTING WATER AND REFLECTIONS Continued REFLECTIONS Here‘s how the theory works, I‘m not sure of it‘s scientific accuracy, but this is what works for me, and how I would describe it. The few marks that suggest the water, and indeed the reflections, depend on how rough the water is. That‘s why a still puddle, or a very calm none flowing body of water, like a lake, has more defined reflections in it, than one that is rough, or has waves, for instance, like the sea. TOP TIP If your ever in doubt about how long to paint reflections, always paint them shorter than you think, this little trick always convinces the eye. The reflections are also subject to the angle at which they are viewed, for example. If the viewpoint is quite low as shown here as indicated by this red line, the reflection will appear quite short. Alternatively, if the viewpoint is quite high as shown here, the reflection will be quite high, and almost a copy of the original image.

The one thing that you have to ensure, is accuracy in your reflections. In other words, don‘t add reflected shapes that aren‘t there, and don‘t miss anything out. Reflections are one of those things that the eye checks out naturally, when viewing a painting. Consider both these paintings of the same scene but one painting is more accurate with it‘s reflections than the other. Funnily the less accurate one sold and the other didn‘t ! But which one does your eye see as the more accurate, A or B ?

A.

B. Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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23. LESSON 14—PAINTING WATER AND REFLECTIONS Continued Another consideration, to ensure you have convincing reflections in your paintings, is that, the way you paint them, convinces the viewer how calm, or how rough the water actually is. The second thing is to have very convincing detail on the surface of the water. Lets look at these two things separately. REFLECTIONS—HOW ROUGH IS THE WATER ? Is this example of a painting I did of Bourgas Pier on the right, the tide had gone out, mainly leaving wet sand and puddles. Because this water isn‘t usually subject to any movement, (except occasionally by the wind), the reflections are very mirror like, and have to be very accurately painted, to be convincing. In this second example of ‗Dusk at Sozopol Naval College‘ on the left, the reflection is slightly broken, and wavy, indicating that there was some gentle movement of the water which causes straight lines to break up as you can see in the photograph I took in the same harbour. For reflections to be convincing, generally, they have to be painted accurately, using a rigger or small brush. With boat masts and rigging do this on bone dry paper. Reflections (because of their sharpness) are very important focal points in a painting, and because of this, is no place for any wet techniques, or fuzziness, but for sharpness, and linear detail.

This scene on the right ,was captured, as we entered the safety and haven of Sozopol Harbour with Yachtsman, and friend Mike on my very first sailing experience, aboard his yacht ‘Seathrift‘. We had sailed down the coast a few miles, one Summer‘s Day for a leisurely lunch, and were hit by a freak force 8 storm, as we reached our destination, under full sail. I wanted to capture the power of the passing storm. Despite my discomfort, I couldn‘t help wondering, how run of the mill it was for the crew, and entourage of seagulls, of this trawler, that followed us into harbour , on that memorable day. ‗A Liesurely Lunch at Ropatombo Bay‘—Private Collection

In this example, above, of one of my most popular works called ‗A Safe Haven in Sozopol‘ where I wanted to emphasise the calmness of the water inside the harbour walls, so painted it with clearer reflections, than outside the harbour where the angry sea still raged.

Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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23. LESSON 14—PAINTING WATER AND REFLECTIONS Continued REFLECTIONS—HOW ROUGH IS THE WATER ? Contd. In contrast to the previous pages, which mainly concentrated on calm water, and sharp reflections, the reverse is true with rougher water. Your choice and portrayal of those reflections, as an artist means that you can either emphasise the reflections or play them down, depending on where you want the emphasis to be, in your paintings. As you can clearly see, from these examples on the right, the sea, by it‘s very nature and roughness, is rarely prone to mirror like reflections, and sometimes none at all. Indeed, given artistic licence, as in the painting of the Naval College, you have the power to invent reflections that weren't there to start with.

NOTE The example is also a good one to show that as an artist, one can move great areas of land to say improve composition, change emphasis, and give more opportunity for counter-change and recession as I did here.

As you can see above, the reflection of the sailing dinghy, is not clearly defined, in this photograph.

Above / Right In these examples, there are no reflections at all, and indeed, much of the character of the painting, has been invented by me.

THE ESSENCE OF THE SCENE HASN‘T CHANGED, BUT HAS ACTUALLY BEEN ENHANCED FROM AN ARTISTIC POINT OF VIEW Notice how in the original scene above, the two masses of land merge into each other tonally, making it hard for the eye to separate them. There is actually a separate bay and beach around the first headland, and so I ‗moved‘ them apart. To emphasise this even more, I both strengthened tonally the one at the front, and made the furthest one recede further back by painting it very lightly, and bluer, achieving a more satisfactory composition, and improved recession.

So as you can see, you sometimes have to decide what you want the emphasis to be in your painting. Is it about beautiful reflections on a mirror like sea as above, or something else ? With ‗Night Sail from Sozopol‘ it combines both. The yacht‘s reflection isn‘t well defined, indicating some movement in the sea water. By contrast, the foreground striation, which was one of those very common ‗happy accidents‘ caused by tinting the paper and missing some stripes, looks like light, reflected by wet compacted sand, on the beach. Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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23. LESSON 14—PAINTING WATER AND REFLECTIONS Continued The final thing need, to paint convincing water, apart from convincing reflections (or not), are the actual details on the waters surface itself.

And this is quite a strange concept, but one unique, and ideally suited to the medium of Watercolour Painting. It‘s the concept that ,in Watercolour Painting, the ‗highlights or brights‘ as they are called, are not painted on using white paint, as they are with oils and acrylics, but are areas of the painting where you leave the unpainted, or lightly tinted paper, to show through. When painting water, it is very desirable to include these unpainted areas, and they can be very small, and seemingly insignificant in themselves. But just a shaft of light against a dark river bank say, is the ‗counter-change‘ and contrast that lifts the spirits, and adds that special something, to the finished work. Try looking at a painting, with one of these highlights, and then cover up the highlight, and you will see it‘s importance in the finished work. The other ‗trick‘ to portraying convincing water, is the subtle use of drybrush on the surface of the water. This adds sparkle and life to water as you can see below. With both these techniques, you need to apply the ‗less is more‘ way of thinking as both can be overdone. Here are some examples from my collection of these ‗brights or highlights‘ which I like to use. I will be demonstrating how to achieve them in the next section.

The secret to good seascapes and scenes portraying water are :SIX TOP TIPS FOR PAINTING GREAT WATER 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

IT HAS TO BE PERFECTLY HORIZONTAL IT‘S COLOUR SHOULD BE MATCHED TO THE SKY IT SHOULD HAVE A SMALL SUGGESTION OF WET WASHES IT SHOULD HAVE ACCURATE REFLECTIONS IT SHOULD HAVE HIGHLIGHTS OR BRIGHTS IT SHOULD HAVE A SMALL QUANTITY OF BRYBRUSH ON IT Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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23. LESSON 14—PAINTING WATER AND REFLECTIONS Continued The Water in a Land, or Seascape, is usually the last thing I paint, as it‘s normally in the foreground, and has details like drybrush and rigger, which are the sharpening of the final details, that naturally come at the end of the painting. Though in some cases the water can be the main feature of the painting and can feature in a large % of the painting as a whole. The actual painting of the water is relatively quick, and is usually done in just a couple of quick simple stages. Firstly, paint the main body of water using wet washes to give movement, interest and variety. While the paint is still damp do your reflections. Finally, when the paper is dry, finish with drybrush and rigger work. This painting, called ‗Misty Lakeside‘ was the subject of my imagination, and was completed in just a few minutes ! HOW TO DO IT ? A WET IN WET EXAMPLE This is the simplest and fastest example, but is one of the most rewarding techniques. With lots of those characteristic opportunities for ‗Happy Accidents too. It‘s also great fun, just watching ‗stuff happen‘ on the paper, while you observe powerlessly ! This is great for demonstrations, and kids love it too. STEP 1 Paint everything in your painting leaving just the water area. Keep your paint mixes, for anything that you have painted, that are going to be reflected in the water. For instance in this example above, the Yellowy sky colour, and the greens and browns of the trees. STEP 2 Wet the area shown, with clean water, up to but not beyond the bank of the lake. Try and get into the habit of applying the water and paint in fairly accurate horizontal sweeps in one smooth stroke. If you do leave any gaps which is perfectly ok, these will then be level when the painting is finished if they are seen. Also work from top to bottom. Don‘t put so much water on the paper so it gathers in pools and puddles, your looking for an overall dampness. STEP 3 Working quickly, and with your board on a slight angle, drop some of your tree colours into the wet paint, roughly opposite where they are above. You can manipulate and add movement, by tilting, or tapping your board, but only do this vertically and never on an angle , which will make your water slope. When your happy with the results, lay your board flat to dry naturally, or with a hairdryer. Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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23. LESSON 14—PAINTING WATER AND REFLECTIONS Continued HOW TO DO IT ? A WET IN WET EXAMPLE Continued STEP 4 Using a stronger mix of your bank colour, drag a few drybrush strokes HORIZONTALLY across the water, and round the bank to add interest and suggest fallen leaves, on the lake. Using the same mix with a touch more black add the fence and any other reflections. If you need any extra ‗sparkle‘, and only once your painting is hard dry, just try carefully, dragging a craft knife blade across your painting, and scratch the surface of the paper (as shown above circled) but again, just ensure you keep the lines, fairly horizontal. And don‘t overdo this technique, as it is habitual, and highly addictive. Again ‗less is more‘ should apply here ! You can get some interesting, and very atmospheric, wet in wet paintings, by pre-tinting your paper, and letting it dry before you start. This painting of the lake on the right, was pre-tinted with the yellow tint, using a weak but consistently, flat wash, of Gamboge and Yellow Ochre. It was also left to dry naturally overnight. Try using tea, to stain your paper, it gives a lovely aged quality to your paintings too. This is another wet into wet painting, using the same techniques I described on the previous pages. Some of you may recognise it as a copy of a Venetian Scene by Turner. He used to tint his paper on some of his work, this one with a very pale blue wash. It was a very quick painting I did, during my Exhibition, after a very dear friend bought me a book of the paintings of his. I don‘t advocate copying like this, but I do find that if one uses their own knowledge, of watercolour painting techniques, and then tries to re-create any given picture. Somehow by considering another way of working, expands my knowledge, and experience, and will hopefully help my own style to evolve. Funnily, I painted it during a quiet time, at my very first Exhibition, as a personal exercise, and just for a bit of fun, and jauntily called it ‗Cheers Mally‘ with reference to Turner‘s middle name of Mallord. The very next visitor insisted on buying it, which still embarrasses me to this day ! Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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23. LESSON 14—PAINTING WATER AND REFLECTIONS Continued HOW TO DO IT ? ANOTHER EXAMPLE The last example of how to paint water, was very loose, and forgiving, though lots of fun. It mainly dealt with softly painted shapes, and reflections, painted in a very loose style. The next example, is quite the opposite, as I portray a sketch of a Venetian scene in a tonal sepia way. In it, we will see, how it is imperative to keep your reflections as accurate as you can. This Example starts by using a tinted paper painted and left overnight to dry.

Notice that the white section was missed, when the paper was tinted. Keep an eye on it‘s survival throughout the painting process. These are ‗Brights or Whites‘ discussed earlier, and are very important, to the finished artwork. STEP 1 Mark your 1/3rd composition marks, and the arrow, for your light source, here coming from fairly low and on the left. It is meant to be an early morning, or scene at dusk. Lightly draw your scene, and the reflections of the buildings in the water, they should never be larger than the real buildings.

Note the bright, unpainted area (circled), and how the drawing has been done around it.

STEP 2 Mix a fairly weak mix of Burnt Umber, Paynes Grey, and Ultramarine Blue, and using a small round brush, paint the distant landscape. Then strengthen your colour mix, and move to the nearest ‘plane‘, and paint the buildings, you only need to paint the shadow side of the buildings (the right hand sides). STEP 3 Now, wet the water area, with clean water and add some of the sky colour in broad horizontal strokes. Try and ensure that these are always roughly horizontal. While this wash is still damp, drop some colour that you have used on the buildings, into the water area, to form the reflections. The dryer the wash, the less the paint will spread out. Just try and ensure that the size of the reflection, is about the same as that above, (arrowed), and also directly below the image. Note how the gap of white is still surviving (circled). Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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23. LESSON 14—PAINTING WATER AND REFLECTIONS Continued HOW TO DO IT ? ANOTHER EXAMPLE Continued STEP 4 Using a flat brush and a stronger mix of your paint, dab in the river bank, taking care to keep your brush horizontal. Make sure that the white area remains untouched. As you can see the dark bank contrasts really nicely with the ‗bright‘ area. You can even use the corner of this big brush to give you very convincing distant windows. STEP 5 Now using a dry brush, and an even stronger mix, drag the dark across the water area, making sure that you keep the resulting marks horizontal.

STEP 6 Before the wash is dry, using a moist, but clean brush, mop out the reflection directly below any light areas. To do this simply wash your brush out then mop up the colour, wiping with kitchen towel, after each stroke .

Whilst the wet wash is still slightly damp, strengthen, the reflections from the buildings. Again, make sure they are directly below.

STEP 7 Now add things like the windows (circled bottom left) using a rigger in the almost dry paint. Because it‘s still slightly damp the paint diffuses and looks realistic in the water.

TOP TIP If your wash dries faster than you would like, re-wet the area locally, using the fine mist from a diffuser, like the sort used for spraying perfume or hair spray.

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23. LESSON 14—PAINTING WATER AND REFLECTIONS Continued HOW TO DO IT ? ANOTHER EXAMPLE Continued STEP 8 After drying the painting with a hairdryer on slow speed, use a flat brush and a mix of Light Red mixed with a little Ultramarine Blue, and paint the terracotta roofs, and also in the their reflections too. Repeat the same, to depict the green colour of the copper canopies on the Church roofs, and spires. You can paint this onto dry, or damp paper, and reflections look best, when there is a mixture of fuzziness and sharpness. It‘s this variety in your reflections, that suggests that the body of water is smoother and calmer in some areas, and rougher in other areas. STEP 9 Using the dark mix strengthen the far bank, varying the line using a flat brush will give you fairly convincing areas, that look like distant bushes, trees and buildings. Don‘t forget to leave that gap of bright water, though you can suggest some waves in it, by the careful use of a rigger or flat brush, as I have done here. STEP10 Now move to the left hand side of the painting and mix your ‗dark‘ paint of Burnt Umber, Paynes Grey and Ultramarine Blue very strong now, as we have moved ‗planes‘ into the very foreground. The main counter-change features of this painting, are the strongly silhouetted posts, against the light sky. Use a broad flat brush and drag it sideways to give very convincing posts. Using a slightly weaker mix, of the same dark colour, (simply by using a bit more water), paint in your reflections of the posts, onto your dry paper. You can use any small brush for this, though I used the edge of my same flat brush and liked the variety in the lines, that this gave me. Important Note See how the posts have been ‗grounded‘ to show where they enter the water, and how is has been achieved in both examples (circled). At the top it was achieved by leaving a gap at the bottom of the post before painting the reflection. At the bottom it was achieved by painting a dark ‗grounding line‘ where it entered the water. Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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23. LESSON 14—PAINTING WATER AND REFLECTIONS Continued HOW TO DO IT ? ANOTHER EXAMPLE Continued STEP 11 Using a flat brush, and your strongest paint, start painting the landing stages for the gondolas. Using a flat brush at the angle of perspective, the landing stages can be painted, using one sideways flat stroke. Keeping the angle consistent, is how to keep them looking realistic, and in perspective. Build up the jumble of stilts and timbers, added over the years, and vary the thickness too. The vertical ones are quite fat, and the horizontal ones not as thick. Then add the fence and cross rails in the same way. STEP 12 Now check all the posts and rails and suggest these in the reflections using a small round brush or a rigger. And finish the lamp-post painting very carefully as this is actually the focal point of the painting.

Finally just scratch the surface of your hard dry painting with a craft knife to add sparkle to the darkest areas of water, and your done. TO SUM UP WATER PAINTING As you can see, by breaking the subject of painting water up into a few simple steps, makes it easy to achieve convincing results very easily. The secret is, to mix up the techniques of wet and dry brush, and use lights and darks to your advantage.

Don‘t be tempted to overdo the scratching, remember, ‗less is more‘ ! Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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24. LESSON 15—PAINTING TREES, BUSHES AND GRASSES The elements of trees, bushes and grasses in the landscape, are very important, and shouldn‘t be underestimated. They clothe the Landscape, and also give endless opportunities, with their endless variations of shape, colour and form. One single tree can be the focus of a painting, like in my painting entitled ‘The Lone Tree‘ below left. But even in a townscape they can offer natural form to an otherwise man-made environment like in the example of ‗Karnobat Centrum‘ on the right. Even just a few The painting of the lone tree was a scene I came upon while out on my mountain bike. I couldn't help wondering, how this one solitary Oak tree had survived the attentions of the many farmers who must have had to avoid it over the years while intensively farming the crops all around it.

strategically placed leaves and one branch can improve a painting like this one of the Clock Tower in Karnobat, Bulgaria

When trees are carefully positioned (either by nature of with the use of artistic licence), they can be a great aid to an artist to improve composition. Their usually upright form, is a great foil for other horizontal parts of the Landscape. In this example, on the left, of a snowy scene near my village, the trees on the left stop the eye from ‘leaving the picture‘, and the one‘s in the far distance on the right serve the same purpose. The shrubs and grasses in this painting are also an important part of the overall look, as they are the things that provide the contrast and counter –change in the painting, painted starkly, and strongly against the white, of the crisp snow. Even the influence of the shadow of a large tree cast over a scene shouldn‘t be under-estimated, as you can see from a section of my painting on the right. The picture of the park area around this local Church had a great number of different trees, ornamental bushes, and grasses, for me to paint. Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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24. LESSON 15—PAINTING TREES, BUSHES AND GRASSES Continued TREES By definition, trees are described as usually having a single trunk, as opposed to bushes, that broadly, have multiple trunks, though usually smaller and thinner. Whilst there are many thousands of species of trees, that vary the world over, a check through half closed eyes, would confirm that in fact, most trees, fall into just these three simple shapes.

A

C

B

Though I appreciate that this is a very simplistic approach, you will find that if you really look at a tree, that you can break it up into either one very simple shape, or series of shapes joined together, as you can see below. Whilst I am no tree expert, the three shapes above, do seem to cover the characteristics, of most species of tree.

A.

THE LOLLIPOP SHAPE

This is your general tree outline, that covers a lot of narrow leafed species. It can have multiple bows and is characterized by areas of light and shadow and usually has a long slender, tapering trunk. It‘s leaf colours can be on the lighter side, and can be very showy, in Autumn. Species like Ask, Elm and Beech would fall into this category.

C. B.

THE TRIANGULAR CONE

Most Evergreens, Fir, Pine trees, and Conifers fall into this category of tree. Their pine clusters appear triangular and they usually have a long straight trunk and can be very sparce at the bottom of the tree.

THE FLAT BOTTOMED UMBRELLA

The Oak tree and the Weeping Willow fall into this category. The Oak usually has broad dark coloured flat leaves coming close to the ground. A very thick trunk which can be gnarled and mis-shapen. They usually cast a broad flat shadow on the ground. The Willow has shapely, light coloured arching fronds almost reaching the ground.

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24. LESSON 15—PAINTING TREES, BUSHES AND GRASSES Continued TREES Continued

Really looking, and copying what you see, is imperative with trees.

Because we are accustomed to seeing them every day, it‘s really easy to lapse into your personal ‗standard tree‘ without actually looking at them, at all. Just as Skies and Water can be intimidating, because of the percentage of the paper they can occupy, trees can be just like that, but even more so, as they are much more detailed….. seemingly.

SUMMER WINTER

SUMMER SUMMER WINTER

The Techniques for painting trees varies, depending on the time of year you are painting them, and whether or not they are in their summer foliage, or their starkest winter ‗look‘. Sometimes in Spring and Autumn they are kind of half and half, with just a few leaves showing. I like to use wet techniques, for trees in their full Summer foliage, in Spring and Autumn I work a little drier so as to emphasise the fewer, but better defined leaves. In Winter I like to paint trees using very strong paint or ink and use sticks, twigs, quills, cocktail sticks, or even the sharpened ends of my paint brushes, to get the very starkness, of their My Winter Tree Winter garb. painting tools

AUTUMN

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24. LESSON 15—PAINTING TREES, BUSHES AND GRASSES Continued TREES Continued In order to paint convincing trees, there are three main things you need to master, which are things most beginners don‘t do, I know I didn‘t either. 1. NEVER PAINT BRANCHES IN FRONT OF FOLIAGE, IT RARELY HAPPENS. 2. TREES NEVER GROW FATTER AS THEY GET HIGHER, ALWAYS THINNER. 3. ALWAYS PAINT IN AN UPWARD MOTION, IN THE DIRECTION THEY WOULD GROW. Let me describe the theory of tree growth, which will help to explain, and make it easier for you to remember how to paint your trees effectively. When a tree grows the original trunk A splits forming the new branch B and then it carries on C

C

If you add the thickness of B & C together they always = A And this carries on all the way to the top of the tree, simple.

B

A

If you study my ‗Wall and Tree Study‘ and ‗Bluebell Wood‘, you can see this happening all the way up the tree. There are some exceptions to this rule in Nature of course, some trees get big cankers, and growths on them, that deform and mis-shape the tree. In practise what can happen is that as you paint upwards, occasionally, by mistake, your branch goes fatter as it grows upwards not thinner. If this happens you will need to make the whole tree below it fatter, or it will look un-natural. It‘s also tempting to add branches on after the foliage, which is wrong, but more convincing ‗sky gaps‘ should be carefully planned at the outset, as they give the tree it‘s convincing look. They also give you the opportunity for the all important contrast, between light and dark, which are so important in your paintings. As in the earlier chapter on composition, remember when adding trees to your landscapes, to make sure they are of different sizes and colours, or your trees could look monotonous. Changing your brushes to a different size will also help avoid being repetitive. Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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24. LESSON 15—PAINTING TREES, BUSHES AND GRASSES Continued TREES Continued Painting trees, and groups of them, either in copses or forests, is quite a simple process, especially if they are in the distance. If you look at them with half closed eyes you will see them, just as masses of light and shade. Painting these distant trees, on damp paper, and just lifting highlights out, is usually enough, and all you have to do is ensure that the further away they are the less defined they are ,and the bluer the colour is. Strengthen the Green as you come into the middle, and foregrounds, as shown below. At these distances the trunks would not be seen and no ‗sky gaps‘ would be discernable either. As you can see with the example below of Karnobat the detail on trees is only seen in the middle and foreground.

You can also see circled in Blue where very dark paint and sometimes ink have been used with a sharpened stick to get that dark twiggy look to these trees and bushes.

In the picture above is depicted two of the classic tree shapes the lollipop and the triangular cone. The painting of all these shapes is shown on the following pages. The painting of the pine tree, is covered in depth on my youtube channel with the tutorial of the painting of the snow scene. Also shown is a pen and ink study of those types of trees, that I completed prior to starting the paintings. Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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24. LESSON 15—PAINTING TREES, BUSHES AND GRASSES Continued TREES Continued HOW TO DO IT ? This example shows trees at various distances, and how to paint them. I started with a light tinted green wash, and let it dry. The colours used throughout, just for purposes of this exercise, are a green mix, using Gamboge and Ultramarine Blue for the leaves, and Burnt Umber with Ultramarine for the tree trunks . STEP 1 First sketch out your scene, marking the border with your 1/3rd marks and the direction of your light, here coming from the Right.

This demonstration can be used for either the lollipop shape or the flat bottomed umbrella shaped trees just alter the shape and leaf colour if you want to. STEP 2 Starting with the furthest ‗plane‘, mix a weak wash of Ultramarine and Paynes Grey. Using a smallish round brush, loosely paint the tree shapes furthest away. Whilst the wash is still damp, run the brush along the bottom of the row of trees. Whilst the heights of the top of the trees vary, the bottoms of the trees usually end in a fairly straight line, especially at this distance.

STEP3 Repeat the process with the next row of trees, adding a little more Paynes Grey to the mix. But make sure the shapes differ and avoid regular patterns emerging. Bearing in mind the direction of the light, lift the highlights on the tree shapes, using a moist brush, to mop up the damp colour. On the dark side of each tree shape, add the ‗darks‘ to the opposite side from the ‗highlights‘. HOW IT WORKS

Add the ‗darks‘ as before using slightly stronger paint to the dark side of each tree after lifting out the highlights from the light side of each tree shape.

The process of ‗mopping up‘ or ‗lifting out‘ paint, using capillary action, is a way of blotting up colour, after it has been applied. The procedure is this :1. Wash your brush out in clean water, and dry it on kitchen towel. 2. Moisten your brush again, and dry it out, but not too much. 3. Carefully mop up the colour, until it stops soaking it up. 4. Now dry the brush on your issue, and repeat until your happy. Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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24. LESSON 15—PAINTING TREES, BUSHES AND GRASSES Continued TREES Continued STEP 4 Now on the third ‗plane‘ of trees, strengthen the colour once again, using a larger brush, and repeat the tree painting process. Leave gaps between each section, which will look like sunlit pastures, between the rows of trees. As you work forward, you can add more and more detail to the trees, which will give distance and ‗recession‘ to your painting. Notice too, how the colour of the trees is getting more green, as we move into the middle distance. STEP 5 Add a dark line to indicate where the bottom of the tree line is, let it bleed up into the other damp colour. Now using a cocktail stick or the end of your paint-brush, drag branches upwards, from the dark paint to indicate dead trees, bushes, or areas of branches, seen between clusters of leaves. With this colour also drag some dry-brush stripes to indicate the undulations and texture of the distant fields and pastures. STEP 6 Using a small round brush or a rigger, paint the tree trunk of the main tree, darkening the shadow side with Burnt Umber and Paynes Grey and also lifting highlights from the light side too. Use the rigger to thicken the tree trunk, and continue to spread the roots onto the ground area, and add a dark patch to ‗ground‘ the tree.

STEP 7 Now using a stronger mix of Gamboge and Ultramarine Blue, and a medium round brush on dampened paper, start building the leaves up, varying the mix, and remembering to add some darks, to the shadow side of the leaf clusters. Don‘t forget to leave some gaps, and ‗sky holes‘ that will give your tree realism later. Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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24. LESSON 15—PAINTING TREES, BUSHES AND GRASSES Continued TREES Continued STEP 8 Use a different dampened brush, like a filbert mop out highlights and add more darks to the shadow side of the leaves. Keep changing brushes, changing the angle of your brush, and your colour mixes, to give you a completely random look, to the leaves. STEP 9 Now, and importantly, wherever you have left gaps in the tree, add some branches, sometimes straight, and sometimes a v shaped branch. If this is against a light background it will add to the contrast, and counter-change, of the finished picture. STEP 10 Now step back from your painting, and see if it needs anything further. I decided that it would improve contrast, and composition, if I added a dark shadow to the shadow side of the ground, under the tree. STEP 11 Finally, add any sharp details like the fence, birds, telegraph poles and distant animals in the fields. Add a dark wash using a dry-brush in a sweeping motion, has also added texture to the foreground. Then as usual, Sign and look smug !

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24. LESSON 15—PAINTING TREES, BUSHES AND GRASSES Continued TREES Continued In this final part of tree painting, we will look at how to paint trees in Group B the triangular cone shape, which covers fir trees, pines, conifers and the like. Their characteristics are that they are usually one straight trunk, fairly sparse at the bottom, with clusters of triangular needles that grow horizontally, in a kind of random triangular shape. Because of their almost linear form, I find it best to paint these almost all with a flat brush, then just some rigger work for the odd branches to finish them off. HOW TO DO IT ? STEP 1 Sketch out your scene and paint all your background. Because of their starkness, and beauty, these types of trees, they are usually the centre of attention, so are painted strongly towards the end of the painting.

SUN

STEP 2 Using a fairly strong mix of paint on a wide flat brush, paint the long slender trunks of the trees. Where the stroke of the brush ends, will naturally deposit more paint, and this should be on the dark side of the trees trunks. Add all your tree trunks and vary the thickness‘s and change the angle slightly to add variation. The distances between them should vary too. Make sure to taper the trunks, as you work up the tree. Using the same colour and brush, add the grounding to the bottom of the trunks, and also to denote the weeds, and bracken that always seem to grow there. STEP 3 Now starting with furthest trees, use the edge of a small flat brush, and dab clusters, of pine needles, working in a horizontal way, starting from the top of one of the trees, and working down. Change to different size brush, and vary the mix for each of the trees, to suggest them growing behind each other. Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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24. LESSON 15—PAINTING TREES, BUSHES AND GRASSES Continued TREES Continued STEP 4 Using a rigger, and dark paint, Paynes Grey mixed with Burnt Umber, add some branches sticking out lower down, and to join the clusters to the tree, higher up. STEP 5 Finally, using your rigger and the same dark paint mix, drag some marks onto the tree trunks, but not all of them, just the biggest ones. Finish off with some dark ‗grounding‘ at the bottom of the copse of trees, and add some bracken, rocks, and grasses. To finish your painting, paint some rocks, using torn cardboard strips, and add darker shadows, and grounding marks. Add more random grasses amongst the rocks using your dark paint and rigger. Adding some different textures and highlights with a combination of paint on a cocktail stick, and a small bit of scratching to add sparkle.

The finished painting

Using a cocktail stick in dark paint to indicate branches and dead twigs.

Sign and look…. well you know the rest by now ! As you can see, painting trees is quite a simple process, and whether they be in the distance, or ‗up close‘ it‘s possible to portray them, very convincingly.

On the following pages we‘ll look at painting winter trees and other kinds of variations on these two types, before moving onto grasses , bushes and hedges.

Less is definitely more with the scratching

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24. LESSON 15—PAINTING TREES, BUSHES AND GRASSES Continued TREES Continued Painting stark Winter trees, has always been a passion of mine, and some of the Artists I most admire, were masters at it, including Ashley Jackson, Rowland Hilder and John Blockley. HOW TO DO IT ? To paint them (and frankly it‘s more akin to drawing) them. If you apply the rules on painting trees from earlier on in this section, regarding how the branches split, it‘s Always paint Winter just a case of starting from Trees from the bottom the base with a medium to the top, working finer round brush and paint as you go. upwards gradually getting thinner as you work towards the top of the tree. Change to a smaller round brush higher up then a rigger and finally a stick to give you the finest of branches.

Use a smooth arched brush stroke to get this type of effect

You can also add lightly coloured patches, of very pale colour, to indicate clusters of remaining or new Spring leaves emerging. Or maybe to indicate the lightest and finest twigs at the ends of the branches. Like the exercise on the fir trees, keep them random, by altering the direction of your brushes.

MASKING FLUID AND TREES If you want to portray light coloured branches, trunks, fruit or leaves, against a darker background, (circled in yellow) paint them first using Masking Fluid, (on an old brush) then paint over it with the background, and peel off the rubbery solution, when dry, with a clean putty rubber. Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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24. LESSON 15—PAINTING TREES, BUSHES AND GRASSES Continued TREES Continued In addition to the types of trees found growing wild, you will also no doubt come across ones that you want to paint that are more cultured and maybe more formal looking. These may include box hedges, fruit trees, vines and ornamental trees. Though the shapes, colours and textures vary, and there are thousands of tree species in the World. The one thing about them all, is that they all Use gently arching strokes grow from the ground up, and if you paint them that way, and to portray the elegance of assume their growing pattern, with your paint brushes, as it the Palm Tree were, you will find it easy to paint them. Sometimes the growth is jagged, or sharp, so you would assume the suitable brushes and painting style to portray them. Sometimes like the palm on the right, their leaves fall in graceful arcs, just like weeping willows too. So to paint those you would choose smooth consistent paint, a fine brush, and sweeping arcs with your arm, when you paint them. ‗FEEL THE TREE, A SIMPLE VINE TALE‘ It‘s quite difficult to describe, but I suppose I am advocating some kind of ‗oneness‘ with the tree and it‘s character in order to paint it best. So for instance, vines have great character with the single stem ‗gnarly‘ and jagged in shape, suggesting its reliability, carefully nurtured and cultivated over many years. It‘s leaves spread like umbrellas, providing shade in hot countries like here in Bulgaria. Then later on in the Summer, the fruit hangs down heavy, with anticipation for the annual ritual of wine and Rakia production, to sustain the owners, through the harshest of Balkan Winters. The precious, potent spirit a kind of unofficial bartering currency in the rustic villages, as captured in my painting opposite called ‗the Importance of the Blue Barrels‘. As you can see above, if one assumes the character of the tree or plant, then it will hopefully help you to empathise with it and paint it using the appropriate brushes, techniques and the style of panting, for each part of it and for each species.

‗Sometimes I have been known to use a part of the tree to paint it ‗.

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24. LESSON 15—PAINTING TREES, BUSHES AND GRASSES Continued BUSHES & GRASSES BUSHES They are similar to paint, to trees, but assume a lower, smaller growth, and usually have multiple branches, instead of a single trunk or stem, and are usually thinner. Bushes and smaller trees can be painted either quite dry, or in their stark form in Winter, or in a wet wash way, as in this example, on the near right. Bushes should be painted to scale with their surroundings, and are generally low growing, compared to most trees. HEDGES A view through half closed eyes usually reveals the clipped box hedge, privet or Birch, as nothing more than a simple box shape. Their ‗character‘ being, low growing, tight knit leaves, and almost coming down to the ground. In this example, the light is hitting the scene from the top left. This means that the top would be lightest, the side would be darker in tone, and the end darker still. The darkest parts being the underneath, and it‘s stems and shadows. HOW TO DO IT ? STEP 1

2

Lightly sketch your hedge shape, and using a wide flat brush, with a weakish mix, of Yellow Ochre and Cobalt Blue drag the vertical sides of the hedges. Be careful to portray some kind of perspective, wide flat brushes, help you to achieve accuracy here. STEP 2 Using the same light colour, dab the top of the hedge to look like darker areas on the top. This is done with the same flat brush used horizontally. STEP 3 Add some Payne‘s Grey to your mix and while the paper is still damp, add the dark to your end, and using the corner dab the bottom shadows in and let it spread. STEP 4 Finally add the detail, stems and darks with rigger.

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Unusually, working from top to bottom will deposit darker paint on the bottom of the hedge, where you want it to look like dark and shadow. This was achieved in just two strokes. One for the end of the hedge, and one for the side of the hedge.

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24. LESSON 15—PAINTING TREES, BUSHES AND GRASSES Continued GRASSES Grasses are one of the simplest things to paint in the landscape, and can also be one of the most attractive of elements too. Because they are usually painted right at the very end of the painting, and in the foreground, so they are usually painted sharply, using dark paint, and can form one of the highlight points in the painting. Grasses can be short or tall and are slender by character. The taller grasses tend to gently arch under their own weight. Shorter ones like after a grain field has been cut, or a lawn almost resemble a short haircut and can be uniform in length. HOW TO DO IT ? There are a few techniques suitable for painting grasses and I always think it best to mix them up where possible. 1. The Rigger Use lightly starting from the bottom up gently lifting off as you reach the top. Use for slender, slightly bending grasses . 2. Lifting out Use a cocktail stick, twig, or other implement to drag shapes out of the damp paint. You get different effects, depending on how hard you press, and how dry the paint is. You can also add paint too with a twig match or cocktail stick. 3. Masking fluid This is useful, especially if you want light grasses, reeds or weeds, against a dark background. 4. Scratching Use a craft knife blade to drag highlights out of the painting. You can get some nice effects if you do this against a dark background giving you nice contrast called counter-change. Be careful to use this sparingly as it is addictive, and only do it when your painting is hard dry. It look like beads of rain on slender grasses. Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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24. LESSON 15—PAINTING TREES, BUSHES AND GRASSES Continued GRASSES Continued HOW TO DO IT ? 5. Using a flat brush This is best used for very straight grasses, for crop stubble, and short grass generally. ‗DAB AND DRAG‘ This is the best way of describing the technique of how to paint convincing short and varying length grasses, using this method. It‘s great for those grass sods, you always find round the bottom of post, and other plants and trees. I‘ll show you, the two main effects you can get, using the dab and drag method. The DAB shown in Green circles, are achieved by simply dabbing down with a well loaded brush onto, usually dry paper. The dab gives you the almost flat tufts of grass. Rigger work just

The DRAG shown in Orange circles, is a quick, to finish off upward jerking motion, which flicks off the (circled in Black) paper at the top of the up-stroke. Use a flat brush almost vertically, and rest it on the paper at the bottom of your grasses, or where you just dabbed. Bend the bristles slightly, then in a vertical flick, just drag upwards. The loading of the correct amount of paint here is crucial, so practise on a spare piece of paper, or on the border of your painting, before you commit yourself to your painting. The drag gives you the slightly longer grasses, and the combination of these, and a little rigger work, for the longest grasses, gives you a finished convincing grass, I use in pastures, field edges, river banks, and areas of uncultivated ground generally. Some examples of ‗dab and drag‘ used in my paintings.

‗As with lots of things in nature, keeping it random and mixing it up, is the key to successful painting with Trees, Bushes and Grasses in your Landscapes. They are a big part of the overall beauty and rich tradition of Landscape Watercolour Painting‘. Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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25. LESSON 16 —PAINTING BUILDINGS This lesson, on how to paint buildings, really couldn‘t be further away from the last one, or so one would imagine, at first glance. Painting buildings generally, is more like Draughtsmanship on the face of it, all that boring detail, and perspective to get spot on etc. Well part of that is true. Some elements of painting buildings, can just flow into the landscape, like the three examples below showing blocks of distant flats, in the painting on the right, and on the panorama of Bourgas below. Even the chimneys and cooling towers at the nearby, Chemical Plant seem to fit comfortably. Contrast those buildings, to the pictures below and you will see that it‘s all just a question of scale and choice. Q. Do you want to see the round shaped, loosely painted distant buildings from miles away ? Or would you like to see the buildings in the middle distance as part of the overall Landscape surrounded by trees. Or it may be a detailed study and commission of someone‘s house. Or it may be the rusty lock, holding the old door closed, seen close up.

A photographer once told me to ‗always look up, and always look behind you‘. Without his advice, I wonder If I‘d have spotted this hidden gem in Bourgas ?

‗The Roof Garden ‗ Bourgas—Bulgaria One of my favourite paintings, and also the type of subjects I love to paint. ‗Right up my Street‘ as it were !

I suppose what I am saying is that the buildings you are ‗drawn‘ to painting (excuse the obvious pun), are as much about your preferences as an artist , as well as your ability to ‗see the picture‘ in the first place.

This ability to spot a possible picture, comes more naturally to some people, than others. As an Artist, you have the power of ‗artistic license‘, to move, add, or leave out anything of your choosing. Like not including the satellite dish on the picture on the left. Or playing down the ugly blocks of offices, behind this beautiful old, but sadly neglected building in Karnobat.

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25. LESSON 16 —PAINTING BUILDINGS Continued So, coming right forward then, in terms of looking at buildings at various distances, is the detailed study of buildings (or just even small portions of them). My own preferences are to paint rustic things, such as old textured doors, worn away by animals, earth coloured peeling paint, plaster and crumbling Architecture generally, and former elegance. All the things found in abundance in places like Tuscany, Provence, Venice and also in Bulgaria. I suppose, summing it up, is a nostalgia for past times. It is possible to tell stories in your subject matter, which evoke feelings, and memories, in others. ‗Wondering what happened, so suddenly, where daily work ended here on one day, that work-wear was simply left and discarded‘. Or how these Grand School Doors, once welcoming hundreds of student‘s every day, now barred from entry by padlocks. The peeling façade, a testament to better days before the fall of Communism in former Eastern Europe.

So the choices about your subject matter, and what buildings you include (if any at all , even), depend entirely on your own likes, dislikes and preferences. Buildings are, I suppose, like studies, and portraits, and they will either look right, or not. So one has to record them reasonably accurately. Don‘t get me wrong, sometimes a strategically placed tree, or bush, saves one from much labouring, over recording building details, which can be tiresome. They are indeed at the opposite end of the spectrum, (in terms of the time they take to paint), to the instant gratification, of painting the ‗wet into wet‘ technique. The longest time a painting has been on my board to date was the one below of the panorama of Sozopol which was a very long three days, and I was glad to have my board free of it in the end.

‗Sozopol Panorama from The Kalithea Hotel and Restaurant‘ - In Private Collection Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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25. LESSON 16 —PAINTING BUILDINGS Continued On the previous page, with the painting of Sozopol, it was important to get the essential elements in, and to scale. So the mayor spits of land, and all the major buildings, were drawn first, in great detail. The major time spent on this type of work, and those below too, is actually the layout, the drawing and re-drawing, until it looks right. The painting of it, is then relatively workmanlike, and quite relaxed. These types of subjects, strike fear into the heart of most beginners, and I can understand why. Perspective, scale, texture and colour amongst many other considerations. When you add on top of all that, someone lives in every one of those houses in Karnobat, and that someone may have worshipped at that Church for decades, means that they have to be recorded fairly accurately.

‗Karnobat Church‘—Above ‗Karnobat Centrum‘ - Right Both in Private Collections

But where would I start ? Never has ‗really looking‘ been more important. Unless you want to make a study of eye level, or perspective, and come back to this, in a few months time. Or there is another way, lets take the picture of Karnobat Church above, as an example. When I draw or paint a complicated structure like this church. I start by breaking it up, into simple block shapes, triangles, and cylinders, like this. However complicated a building, (and frankly they don‘t come much more complicated than this), simply ‘build it‘ block by block until it looks right. Then join all the bits together with roofs. It‘s then a really easy task to add the details like doors and windows just drawing them on each block. As you can see this viewpoint is quite high for purposes of this diagram but the actual view was from ground level, and was in fact quite low as I was sat down, so at the same level as the seated men. The eye level is marked with the Orange arrow This is where ‗really looking ‗ comes into it‘s own, when you are drawing a scene, and of course, those detailed photographs, are invaluable, when it comes to those final important details, that you forgot to draw, or record on the day. The real secret is to ensure you capture the ‗essence ‗ of the scene ? In other words, have you got all the important bits, that make this scene unique ? If the answer to that question is yes, then you have enough material to record the scene. Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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25. LESSON 16 —PAINTING BUILDINGS Continued When painting buildings, I would recommend that the first wash on the buildings, be done using flat brushes. The wash should be painted, using the angle that the structure is built, or arranged. In other words, flat for walls, and sloping for roofs. The Orange arrows, show the options you could use. As you can see, it‘s possible to paint the walls either horizontally, or vertically. I would normally choose the direction, depending on what the wall was constructed of. If it‘s say vertical planks I would paint vertically. If stone or bricks I would paint it horizontally, to denote the lines of mortar.

BRICKS /STONES

PLANKS Here below is a selection of different wall finishes using the two techniques above, as a base wash.

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25. LESSON 16 —PAINTING BUILDINGS Continued SURFACE FINISHES Once the base wash is put on, subsequent layer, or layers, can be applied to add depth and texture to the finished surface layer. The amount of detail you need to include, really depends on how far away the wall, or roof is, from the viewer, for example. CLOSE UP DISTANT RENDERED PLASTER This effect is painted using smooth vertical stokes, with consistently smooth paint to simulate new plaster. Sometimes staining can be seen under roofs, gutters and overhangs. BROKEN PLASTER This is painted with the same vertical strokes, but with some staining with darker paint, into wet paper. Stones or bricks can be seen through where the old plaster has broken away. STONE The stones are painted over the light base coat, using either a flat brush, rigger or filbert. The stones can be either randomly painted or can be formally built and painted. They can even have timber or bricks between the courses as here. PLANKS These are painted, either on damp or dry paper, using vertical or horizontal brush strokes, depending on the direction of the timbers. A Rigger, in a darker colour, is then used to indicate the gaps in the planks, and also the knots and marks on the wood. BRICKS Bricks are literally painted using flat brushes used horizontally or vertically. The size of brush depends on the size of the bricks, and the area being covered. It‘s not necessary to paint every brick, as the human eye fills in any gaps. When your painting walls, roofs and architectural details, it‘s not necessary to paint all of the details. The human eye and brain adds any you leave out . All you need to do, is to suggest it, in your paintings. Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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25. LESSON 16 —PAINTING BUILDINGS Continued CLOSE UP RUSTY METAL This effect is painted using a combination of drybrush strokes, in Earth colours like Light Red, Red Oxide, and Burnt Umber. You can also use masking fluid, or a resist, like candle wax, to good effect. NEW TERRACOTTA ROOF TILES Over a damp wash of Light Red and Ultramarine Blue, wait a couple of minutes and add horizontal, or vertical lines, to denote shadow on the shaped tiles. Make sure you take care with the line of the tiles, to make it convincing. OLDER TERRACOTTA ROOF TILES Using a more Orange mix than above use the same technique to paint the rows of tiles. But on the horizontal lines make this line wavy. Try looking at tiles to see how they lock together. This will give you a better idea how to paint the roofs effectively. VERY OLD ROOF TILES These have a more rounded construction, and are painted like the ones above, but on damp paper. They are distinctive at the bottom, as they are stacked, and interlocked, sometimes three or four high, which can only be seen at the edge of the roof. GREY ROOF TILES These are rare on houses in Bulgaria, but are used on some roofs. They are painted using a grey wash on slightly damp paper. The lines then painted with a rigger, when the paper is completely dry. COPPER CANOPIES These are painted using a round brush using almost a pure terracotta colour. They can turn greenish with age. The lines are joins, and are then added with dark paint when the roof is completely dry. Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

DISTANT

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25. LESSON 16 —PAINTING BUILDINGS Continued First, lightly sketch the landscape, to include the buildings, laying them out in your 1/3rd grid guidelines. Just like we did with your Orange, at the very start of this book, mark the direction of the light on the border of your paper, as a constant reminder. It‘s worth studying, how the light hitting the scene, affects both the landscape, and the buildings in it. THE FEW SIMPLE POINTERS BELOW WILL MAKE YOUR BUILDINGS COME TO LIFE 1. ALWAYS GROUND YOUR BUILDINGS Which involves painting a dark mark on the bottom where the building sits on the ground. 2. ADD SHADOWS TO MARK ANY OVERHANGING OBJECTS 3. PAINT YOUR SHADOWS

FIG 1

Compare the diagram fig 1 above, with the one below, to see how much more realistic the house becomes with the ‗grounding , and shadows‘. FIG 2 In fig 2, the building now seems to ‗sit‘ on the ground and belong in it‘s landscape. This ‗grounding‘ works for everything you paint, that sits on another surface. The only thing it doesn't happen with, is things that fly like birds or clouds. You can see with each of these paintings, examples of shadows on overhangs, on the ground, and on the buildings, shown in Orange. Grounding is also indicated in Blue.

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25. LESSON 16 —PAINTING BUILDINGS Continued HOW TO DO IT ? - HOW TO PAINT THE ELEMENTS ON A SIMPLE BUILDING STEP 1 Sketch your building. You would normally paint the building on the ‗plane‘ that it belongs on. Here I have painted a simple background. Sun on the left.

STEP 9 Now paint the front wall and the front of the chimney. Lift some of the colour out as this should be lighter than the end shadow side of the house. See the arrow.

STEP 2 Use the base colour of your roof on a flat brush and drag it down the roof at the same angle as your roof. If this is uneven and leaves deposits of paint it‘s ok. STEP 3 Once your roof is painted, and whilst it‘s still wet, use a round brush, to add some darker tones along the ridge of the roof. The older the roof the more uneven this would be.

STEP 10 While your wall colours are still damp, add ‗dark‘ to the overhanging parts of the roof and on the end wall too. THIS IS IMPERATIVE FOR REALISM.

STEP 4 Using a smaller round brush and the same dark mix, paint the underside and edge of the roof but NOT the far edge as circled this is because it can‘t be seen.

STEP 11 Once everything is dry, using a flat brush and dark paint, paint the windows and door ‗reveals‘. These would nearly always be the same thickness.

STEP 5 Again while still damp, and with the same dark shadow colour dab lines onto the roof at the same angle, these should bleed into the other paint and that‘s the effect you want.

STEP 12 Using a flat brush the size or smaller than the window glass, paint the individual pains. Great care has to be taken to keep them square, and keep the white frame the same thickness‘s.

STEP 6 Add an even darker paint to the still damp paint. Watch it bleed into the other, and it looks like shadow on shaped tiles. The older the roof the more uneven.

STEP 13 Using your door colour, on a flat brush to paint the planks. Make sure you leave the frame unpainted, as you did with the windows.

STEP 7 Now using your wall colour drag a flat brush horizontally or vertically. The older the wall surface the more uneven you need to paint it. Some patchiness looks good on old plaster.

STEP 14 Slightly darken your mix and dab onto the still damp door and when this bleeds it looks like the undulations on the planks that the door is made of. If you find it easier, use a rigger.

STEP 8 Paint the shadow side of the chimney. Bear in mind that the material is usually the same as the walls of the buildings.

STEP 15 When the walls have dried paint some window sills below each window. Maybe this should have been step 12 !

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25. LESSON 16 —PAINTING BUILDINGS Continued HOW TO DO IT ? - HOW TO PAINT THE ELEMENTS ON A SIMPLE BUILDING Continued STEP 16 Using a round brush and a stronger mix of your wall colour add character to your end walls and along the bottom. Add some dry brush to look like staining. STEP 17 VERY IMPORTANT Using a round brush ‗GROUND‘ your building which makes it ‗sit‘ in your landscape. Using a dark strong paint.

STEP 19 Now add the ‗planes‘ around the house to really make it sit in it‘s landscape setting. Notice how the shadow almost becomes the bushes on the right. STEP 20 Add the shadows to the ends of the window sills, and to the roof tiles, where the shadow of the chimney would cast it‘s shadow on the roof.

‗GROUNDING‘ YOUR HOUSE

STEP 18 Now extend the dark and add the shadow of the house on the ground. The main block of shadow nearest the house would be solid but it can get drier as gets further away.

STEP 21 Now add any further sharp details, using black paint, on a rigger. Those things like door handles and hinges etc. STEP 22 Step back from your painting and half close your eyes to see if the painting works tonally. I decided to strengthen the end wall, so it contrasted more with the front wall.

AFTER

BEFORE

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25. LESSON 16 —PAINTING BUILDINGS Continued So the first consideration, when painting your buildings, is how close they are ? This would then suggest how much detail is needed. Or maybe even, how big and important are they in the context of the picture. Consider the three pictures below, all showing blocks of flats. EXAMPLE 1 These distant flats were painted in In this view of a distant Town, with it‘s distinctive one stroke using Tower Blocks, if you look at them in detail they are LEFT—FLAT RIGHT –FILBERT nothing more than a jumble of, varying coloured, and sized, stripes of colour. The stripe only representing the shadow side of the buildings, on the right of each block. The highlights are simply gaps of white paper, left exposed. Some flats were painted with a small But note how both brush shapes shown in flat brush, and others with a Filbert. At this distance Orange, result in convincing looking flats there are no details visible, such as doors or windows. EXAMPLE 2 In this painting, done as a live demonstration, the flats are in the middle distance, but are still painted quite loosely, using the wet in wet technique. This one was painted mainly with flat brushes of varying sizes. A big 1‘‘ flat brush is used to indicate the ‗sections of the building, representing each floor‘, and a medium flat was used to paint the big windows and balconies. A smaller flat brush was then used, to paint the smaller rows of windows on the side of the flats. For these to be sharp they have to be painted on perfectly dry paper, and the brush carefully controlled. It‘s important to keep the same angle, and the flat brushes help here. EXAMPLE 3 Here you can see extensive In this final example, which was closer still use of about four different than in Example 2. You can see here, that sizes of flat brush to ‗build‘ the building. again flat brushes were used extensively to build up these flats. This is the most detailed painting of them all, so you have to be even more accurate with each ‗layer‘. Use the flat of the brush, to help guide, and keep the angles consistent. In this case, I painted the flats from the top down, and wanted them to be less defined, as I worked down towards the softly painted greenery, in the foreground. The flat brush and very dark colour then used extensively to further emphasise the angles, floors and to define the top of the building as shown. The secret to painting this type of ‗layered‘ man made type of structure, is to let your brushes do the work. So choose the size and type most suited to what you are trying to portray in your Townscapes and Paintings. Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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25. LESSON 16 —PAINTING BUILDINGS Continued HOW TO DO IT ? This section is very difficult to teach, simply due to vast variety of buildings, materials, and Architecture, but I will give you an example which may guide you through the process. Use the guide on different surfaces and materials on the previous pages, and also the guide on grounding, and shadows, to get you started. EXAMPLE This is a scene I have passed quite often, in the centre of Bourgas, but have never had time to stop and draw it, but have taken many photographs of it. It‘s actually the main house, to the right of my painting, ‗The Roof Garden‘ (inset). The faded elegance of this house has always attracted me, and though painting animals really isn‘t my scene, I will attempt it now, for the purposes of this exercise. A consideration is that when I took the original photograph, in an artistic manner, crouching low, to exaggerate the angles, the effect this has, looks great on the photograph, (and is called converging verticals I think), but would look a bit strange on a watercolour. So I have straightened the view somewhat. STEP 1 So bearing in mind the new ‗straight on view‘ I carefully sketch the scene using a soft graphite pencil. I know by experience that there will be lots of re-drawing before I am happy with the way it looks. The perspective (in other words REALLY LOOKING) are important with a painting like this. And you can see evidence, of the lines of perspective, and the way I have kept increasing the size of the top of the gate‘s ironwork, on the left hand side, so it looks in line with the house in the background. STEP 2 Because I would like the new painting, to compliment the old one, and liked it‘s overall feel, of being ‗under-painted‘ I start with a striated wash (meaning I miss a few bits accidentally, on purpose, as it were), this gives me the same overall feel to the painting. I painted this wash vertically, with my biggest flat brush, and moved my board around slightly, to cause ‗bleed‘ which will signify staining on the building, later on. Bearing in mind that the light is coming from the right, while the wash is still wet, I lift highlights, by ‗mopping out‘ with a moist round brush. These include the top right of the Lions Head and the top of it‘s column. I also used moist flat brushes, of various sizes to remove the paint from the window pains and the side wall. The effect I wanted to achieve here is one of a run down building, so I haven't been too dogmatic about painting the wash uniformly. Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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25. LESSON 16 —PAINTING BUILDINGS Continued HOW TO DO IT ? STEP 3 Bearing in mind what was discussed previously, about shadows, on things that overhang. Whilst the wash is still wet, I ‗let in‘ some darker colour, where the ‗darks‘ would be, under the deep cornice and under the top windows (circled). STEP 4 With a mix of Yellow Ochre and Ultramarine, with just a touch of Payne‘s Grey, all on slightly dampened paper, I paint all the ‗darks‘ on the shadow side of the building to the right, the left hand wall of the main building, and finally the dark side of the three dormer windows jutting out from the roof. Doing these areas, suddenly gives the painting life, and a three dimensional quality. NOTE When you paint these areas always ensure that you paint vertically, making sure that your edges are completely upright, and keep checking them, with each other, and also the borders of your painting too, as it‘s easy to go askew. This also applies to all doors and windows. Except for the most dilapidated of buildings, (like a couple of my paintings of Bulgaria for instance), the façade is peeling, but it would still be structurally sound ….and upright, hopefully !

STEP 4 The next step is to paint the sky and I painted carefully around the top windows. Because this subject matter is all about the building, the sky becomes secondary to it, so I paint it simply, using a mix of Cobalt Blue and Ultramarine Blue, with just a hint of Light Red, to keep it warm. As you can see there is no character, and little movement, in the sky at all, which was my intention of course. STEP 5 Because the glass (particularly in the upper windows) reflects the sky colour, I mix the sky colour with some Payne‘s Grey. I choose the flat brush closest to the size of the windows. Sometimes this is sideways as here, and sometimes it is vertically. Varying the direction on glass gives it realism, and anyway other things can be seen through the glass such as blinds, curtains, and walls, so some variety is desirable to suggest things happening, in the house. STEP 6 Now I add more ‗darks‘ over all the windows and paint the leaded sloping roof in between the dormers, using a grey, from the windows using my flat brush. I also make a start on the elaborate mouldings on the building, using a small round brush and rigger, taking care with these details. Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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25. LESSON 16 —PAINTING BUILDINGS Continued HOW TO DO IT ? STEP 7 To recover some ‗brights‘ to the scene, and to add some ageing and decay, I now add a wash of Yellow Ochre and Ultramarine to damp paper, and let it seap down the building, from top to bottom. STEP 8 As you can see I am working down the painting from top to bottom, and now turn my attention to the deep decorative cornice, using a dark colour on a 1/4‘‘ flat brush. Make sure that you keep the angle consistent, and keep one eye on perspective, and that everything stays in line, roughly. STEP 9 Now I add more ‗staining‘ in a stronger colour, to the two walls that are in shade. Using a darker tone than the walls, I now strengthen the mouldings above each window, and in between the windows, and also adding the same ‗dark‘ to the side of each main window, to represent the thickness of the walls inside the window reveal. Make sure these are always the same consistent thickness. A building would never have thinner walls in some places, and be thicker elsewhere. They would always be the same thickness, throughout the building. STEP 10 Using an old brush, apply masking fluid, to the face of all of the decorative wrought iron gate, and the frame above. Let it dry naturally, or blow dry it on a slow speed. STEP 11 Using a mix of Gamboge and Ultramarine, and using a medium round brush, loosely paint the tree behind the gates. Vary the direction of the leaves and keep them sharp at the top, weakening the mix further down the painting by spraying with clean water. STEP 12 While the tree wash is still damp add some ‗darks‘ to the bottom left of the bushes, to indicate the shadow side of the foliage.

STEP 13 Make sure the trees and bushes are hard dry, then remove all the rubber solution using your clean finger or a putty rubber. Notice the opportunity for counter-change, with the tree, and fence.

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Counter-Change

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25. LESSON 16 —PAINTING BUILDINGS Continued HOW TO DO IT ? STEP 14 Using a 1/2‘‘ flat brush, and almost jet black paint, smoothly paint the underside shadow of the thicker frame, of the arched fence. Use a smaller flat brush and a rigger, for the thinner, decorative ironwork. With these types of elaborate subjects it‘s really important to concentrate, as it‘s easy to get lost, with all those curves, curly bits and shadows, but just keep reDARK SIDE ferring back to your arrow on the margin of your paper, and keep asking yourself ‘if the light comes from there, what would be in shadow‘ and then you really can‘t go wrong.

LIGHT SIDE

STEP 15 Using a terracotta wash, of Red Oxide, and Ultramarine Blue, wash the lower upright of the gate, and add the dark side using the same colour as you did for the other ironwork above. Add dots and pit marks randomly. And wash some of the rust wash on damp paper, and let it streak down vertically, to look like more rust. It would be more rusty where the metal sections join each other, or where they overlap. STEP 16 Using a mix of Raw Umber and a Little Ultramarine, wash the whole column area, using a large round brush, working in arcs, to simulate the shape of the curves. While that wash is still wet, add some Paynes Grey to your mix, and drop in the darks, again bearing in mind the direction of the light source, which will confirm, which parts should be lighter, and which should be darker. STEP 17 Using almost pure black paint, further define the shapes of the curved indentations in the column, and add the cracks. Now re-dampen the surface, and smooth over any hard edges, to soften, so again they begin to look curvy. Now add some dry brush in the same dark colour, to indicate the texture of the stone. Adding some pit marks too. Darken the bottoms, where it would be in shadow. STEP 18 Using the same mixes and shadow colours, paint your Lion wet in wet, so the colours blend together to look like a rounded object. Lift Highlights from the Light side (the right hand side circled in White), and darken anything on the opposite side (the left side circled in black). Soften any hard edges, with a clean, moist brush, before it dries, so it blends in, looking like the indentations from the stone masons chisel. Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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25. LESSON 16 —PAINTING BUILDINGS Continued HOW TO DO IT ? STEP 19 Finally, define the hard edges, and paint the eyes, and nostrils of the Lion. Add any white body colour if you want to add any missed highlights as I did, and I also couldn't resist the odd bit of scratching too ! Now dry off your painting thoroughly, either leaving it overnight, or with a blow dryer, on the slowest warm setting. Cut your painting from your board, after removing the pencil marks, (if you want to) using a clean Putty Rubber. NEGATIVE OR REVERSE PAINTING This is not painting an object onto the paper, but actually painting everything around it so the object stands out, in order to emphasis it. I used it here extensively, (circled) it is possible and desirable, to paint the background of an object, so that the thing, the object, then stands out even more. In this painting I wanted the elaborate fence top above the gates to be a feature of the painting. To emphasise this further, I reverse painted the bushes darker, carefully going around the ironwork. The result is that the ironwork is really sharp against the dark counter-change of the background. See below for another example of this.

The Finished Painting—‘A Grand Entrance—Bourgas‘ Whilst this subject is far from simple to paint, I wanted you to see the process, from start to finish, with a complicated subject. Just to demonstrate how easy it is, if you build things up in stages, slowly. The painting was done over two days. If you struggle with life subjects like me, try photocopying a black and white image to trace, or copy, or even scale it up and cut a stencil to use if it helps you. Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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26. LESSON 17 — OTHER THINGS IN YOUR LANDSCAPE Like People animals, birds and boats etc. PEOPLE Some things are naturally complimentary to a Landscape, to me, and other aren‘t. Because my chosen preferences, are the effect of the Weather, texture, atmosphere, and even humour, they don‘t always lend themselves to other things being included, though my signature ‗tongue in cheek‘ of two flying birds, are an exception ! I suppose I prefer to paint inanimate objects, so my land, town and seascapes tend to be sparsely populated. I like to ‗draw‘ people, birds and animals, with a view to including them in my landscapes, and sometimes they crop up in the strangest of places. ‗The Sinister Man‘ (Right) But what makes him look sinister ? The hat , the stick, the dark glasses or all those things put together !

And the old lady from the village in ‗Always in a hurry‘ (Left) What makes her look like she is rushing somewhere with a real purpose is it the angle of her body, or her arm, or the fact that she looks like she is striding out ? Just try and capture the character in your subjects.

I like to sketch, and photograph people, and though I am no portrait artist, I like to try and capture the essence of peoples characters, in as few a strokes of my pencil, or brush as possible. The sketches above emphasise this. The sketches of the old lady ‗Always in a hurry‘, and ‗The Sinister Man‘ encapsulate this. The woman does look in a hurry and is simply drawn, it is just her ‗gait‘ that makes it look like she is in a hurry, and the same with the man, there is something in his manner, that just makes him look sinister, it could be his wide brimmed hat hiding his face, the stick, his dark glasses, or maybe his smart appearance, or his hand in his pocket. If you look at the study of him, it‘s actually all of those things together.

Landscapes are enhanced, if they are populated in some way, be it with people, birds or animals. A landscape without any of these things can look static, bleak and lifeless. So even, like me, if portraits don‘t interest you, study them, and sketch, and paint them, and try to include some life subjects, in your paintings. Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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26. LESSON 17 — OTHER THINGS IN YOUR LANDSCAPE Continued Like People, Animals, Birds and Boats etc. PEOPLE Continued The inclusion of people, can be paramount in paintings, and can add humour, purpose or even sadness. They can also give a painting atmosphere, meaning and nostalgia, and a timeless quality. Consider the paintings below and how important the characters are in them. Try and cover the people up, and see how it effects the look and feel of the painting, and you‘ll see what I mean about their importance. The positioning of them is also crucial, to the overall composition, of a piece. In this piece (right), painted for my sister Julie, I wanted to capture the freedom of childhood. So the characters, of her, and I in a rock pool, at the beach are painted very simply. Though inaccurate in lots of ways, neither of us have ever been blond for instance. But, the portrayal, captures that lovely moment, and evokes happy memories of Summer Holidays on the Yorkshire coast.

In the next example on the left, my painting shows a couple sat on an upturned boat, at the beach at Sozopol. Their closeness is obvious, and they are clearly discussing their future together. It‘s a good example of how static the painting would be, without them. The only living things would be my signature two seagulls hiding in the corner.

RECORDING PEOPLE Whenever I go out, I usually try to take my sketch pad, and camera and like to record people just going about their business, in all manner of poses. Walking, running, standing, sitting, reading and interacting with each other. I call these my ‗stock people‘ and when I want to include one in a painting, if I havn't sketched one at the scene, I have a look for one in my ‗stock‘ of sketches, and photo‘s. You can see my ‗stock‘ old Bulgarian lady, dressed in black, from my many photo‘s of her, going about her daily life. Her specific characteristics to capture, whenever I paint her are her stance, her strength and pride, and reliance on her walking stick, due to the ravages of time, arthritis and years being bent over, tending her garden to feed her family.

As you can see she keeps cropping up !

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26. LESSON 17 — OTHER THINGS IN YOUR LANDSCAPE Continued Like People, Animals, Birds and Boats etc. PEOPLE Continued Sometimes , you can use the careful placement of your characters, to make some kind of point, or statement about your Artwork. In the picture done for a Commission of Karnobat Church, I wanted to capture the wealth and grandeur of the church, also the old man relaxing and enjoying the sunshine, sat on the bench. But if you look very carefully, you can spot a second character, in the piece. Painted almost as simply as the piece of sculpture in the garden, is a beggar, who is always on the cold stone step outside the Church, and I also wanted to capture the contrast between the characters fortunes, and the humanity of both of their situations. In the next picture, (on the left), again painted for a client who owned the yacht. I wanted to capture the peace, calm and serenity of an evening‘s fishing, from the dock side in Sozopol. It was a freezing cold evening when I recorded the scene with my camera, as it was too cold, to stand and sketch. I also thought that this local man, who must fish every day, presumably to feed his family, was in sharp contrast to the grand architecture, of the Naval College in the distance. The quiet dignity, and efficiency of his successful evenings fishing, amongst millions of pounds worth of swanky yachts, and power boats, at the Marina was quite humbling. I titled the painting ‘A Fish out of Water‘ as my comical way of commenting about that, and also about the very elegant shape of the yacht, propped up on the quayside, in a very undignified way. Indeed it too was ‗a fish out of water‘ ! The last example on the left, shows the final sweep as our local villagers scoured the harvested field, for any last onions, rejected by the machinery.

As you can see using a combination of sketches and photo‘s, it‘s possible to include people very effectively in your painting, without being a portrait artist. We‘ll see how to do it next ! Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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26. LESSON 17 — OTHER THINGS IN YOUR LANDSCAPE Continued Like People, Animals, Birds and Boats etc. PEOPLE Continued HOW TO DO IT ? The very same principles of light and dark apply, just the same when painting people, as they did in the very first lesson, about painting the orange. The character of the person, relies less on the painting of them, (in the context of using them in a Landscape), but more on the drawing of them. The drawn outline should have the basic information on the subject, which would include things like their height, weight, manner, and how they carry themselves. STEP 1 Draw your figure, making sure that you capture the essence of their character. It will be about their sex, age, stance, shape, weight, culture and posture. If you can capture all of this information accurately, it will give you believable people.

STEP 2 Paint the background around them, making sure you include gaps like under the ladies arms. Also add grounding marks, where she stands. Notice that it isn‘t necessary to paint her feet, particularly if she is on grass, or rough ground.

STEP 3 Paint your character. This lady from our village, dresses in the Mediterranean Black of a widow and her dress, shawl and pinafore are all in Greys, or Blacks. Use a medium round brush, and Paynes Grey to carefully fill her outline in.

STEP 4 While the paint is still wet, wash out, dry your bush off, on kitchen towel. Now lift out the damp paint, revealing the highlights on the top of her head, shoulder and torso. The light here coming from the left. Add darks to the opposite sides.

STEP 5 Lift out any other highlights, while the paint is still damp, here using a 1/2‘‘ Flat Brush to mop out the square shape of her light coloured shopping bag against her dark clothing. An opportunity for contrast, and ‗counter change‘.

STEP 6 Finally, add small details like her shawl, and sleeve, and any belts and fine details etc. I also lifted out more highlights on the top of her chest, shoulder and stomach. Note the lack of facial features, but the old lady, still has bags of character.

The inclusion, and positioning, of a carefully chosen character, will add charm, nostalgia, interest, and increased saleability, to your work. I also like to capture a scene as it would have been before the advent of modern technology. So I always omit things like satellite dishes, and telegraph poles. Though elegant lampposts (even modern ones, as here in Plovdiv, Bulgaria) are always included. By taking these measures, gives the piece a timeless quality, like this old lady, going to collect her bread, could be in any time period. Also if you paint your characters loosely, as I suggest above, the old lady can be everyone‘s Grandmother too. Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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26. LESSON 17 — OTHER THINGS IN YOUR LANDSCAPE Continued Like People, Animals, Birds and Boats etc. ANIMALS Once again animals, can and do play a vital role, by adding life to a landscape, and again, I rely on my stock of sketches, studies and photographs of them regularly. The one thing you can usually rely on when drawing an animal, is that you get time, as they spend lots of time in one place, usually eating. The amount of detail you need to record, will depend mainly, on how far away they are from the eye, in your Landscape.

A selection of my animal sketches

When drawing, then subsequently painting animals, in your landscape, as with people the stance, and characteristics of the breed has to be recorded quite accurately. But again distance is the key. If your animals are an important part of any given painting, you would want (and need) to record much more detail, than if they were further away, or played a lesser role, in the painting. In this watercolour painting of mine on the left called ‗Long Shadows, Cherkovo‘ of a shepherd with his sheep, the animals are loosely painted, and just blend into the landscape, showing a scene as the man tends his flock into the evening. You will see how to paint them like this, on the next page.

In contrast, in the painting on the right, the animals are in the far distance, and are nothing but blobs of paint, as you can see in the close up. Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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26. LESSON 17 — OTHER THINGS IN YOUR LANDSCAPE Continued Like People, Animals, Birds and Boats etc. ANIMALS Continued HOW TO DO IT ? The secret to painting convincing animals, is to draw the outline quite carefully, before you paint them. Use your photographs and sketches extensively. The crucial things to get right, when you paint animals is the angle of the back, and the size of the head. In this demonstration, I will show you how to paint a flock of sheep, but basically it‘s just painting one, then repeating it. With a flock like this it‘s important to slightly vary the colour, and characteristics of each sheep, just slightly. They will then all assume a different character. So slightly vary the different markings, size, face, and even shape. STEP 1 First, sketch your animals lightly, ensuring you record each ones stance accurately. With a group, try and go for a harmonious composition, with some standing, and others not. STEP 2 Now carefully paint the background, around your sheep, taking care, not to alter the shapes of the animals. Here I have just used a Yellow Ochre wash, for the background. STEP 3 While the paint is still wet, add your ‗dark‘ GROUNDING under each sheep to make them ‘sit‘ in the landscape. This will also bleed up into the other colour, and looks like grass, when dry. STEP 4 Using Yellow Ochre and just a touch of blue, fill in the shape of the sheep from top to bottom, any dark paint falling to the bottom is fine as this starts to look like shadows and darks. STEP 5 Add some dark to your colour, and paint the dark, and underside of the sheep, allowing the paint to bleed up into the other still damp colour. This is what gives the animal it‘s bulk. STEP 6 Now using a small round, slightly dampened clean brush, mop out the paint from the light top and side. Here the light is coming from the high left, of the flock of sheep. STEP 7 Once each sheep is dry, (use a hair dryer ), move on to the next one, adding any shadows that one sheep may cast on any adjacent ones. Once the group is painted, strengthen the grounding of the whole group, which will pull them all together. Finally finish by using dark (here almost black) to paint faces legs and ears. Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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26. LESSON 17 — OTHER THINGS IN YOUR LANDSCAPE Continued Like People, Animals, Birds and Boats etc. BIRDS By their nature, birds are small, in comparison to people and most animals in the landscape, but their importance shouldn‘t be underestimated. In the starkest of Landscapes, just the addition of a couple of distant birds, can add life to a painting, and I do try to include at least this, in my work. Sometimes they are difficult to spot , but they are usually there somewhere. There are exceptions, to their minor role, like in the following examples. In my painting, ‗A Fine Residence for Pigeons‘ I wanted to portray this fine old house in Karnobat, but also the comedy element, that these particular pigeons have lived there for many years clearly, and in fact the balcony is now almost collapsing, under the weight of their accumulated droppings ! HOW TO DO IT ? STEP 1 Draw your pigeons, paint the background, and add any grounding assuming they are sitting on something like here on a roof.

Flying birds are painted in exactly the same way, apart form their lack of ‗Grounding‘ as they are in the air !

STEP 2 Paint your pigeons, they usually have a grey or purple cast to them. If any darker paint falls to the bottom that‘s ok.

STEP 4 The ‗Darks‘ have now been added, using a purple/ grey wash. Then, mop out the highlights, from the top left, on the head, shoulders and backs, of your pigeons. STEP 5 Now add the darks, and any shadows that may be cast from one bird to any adjacent ones. Also finish with stronger grounding, and fine details, like beaks and eyes.

As you can see birds, and pigeons are quite simple shapes, but capturing their character, is the key to painting them successfully. Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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26. LESSON 17 — OTHER THINGS IN YOUR LANDSCAPE Continued Like People, Animals, Birds and Boats etc. BIRDS Continued This next example, stresses how important birds can be in a painting. I had always wanted to paint seabirds following a trawler, and got the opportunity one stormy day by the Black Sea resort of Sozopol in Bulgaria. Painting light, sunlit birds, against a dark background, like this stormy sky, can appear tricky for a beginner, and certainly, if painted traditionally, would be difficult to paint around all those individual birds, with the sky wash drying rapidly. The secret is to use a ‗resist‘ (a resist is anything that ‗resists‘ paint sticking to the papers surface). In this case masking fluid was used. Other types of resists include wax but the advantage of masking fluid, is that its tinted so you can see what you have painted.

HOW TO DO IT ? STEP 1 Paint your birds, using an old brush, stick or blade, carefully filling in the shapes, as quickly as possible. The rubber solution dries almost instantly, so never ever use a good brush with masking fluid. STEP 2 Paint your background over the birds, then when hard dry, carefully peel off the rubber solution using a clean finger or Putty Rubber. Finally paint in the birds on the clean white paper, as above.

TOP TIP Always ensure that the top of the masking fluid bottle is screwed on tight, or it solidifies in the bottle. If it goes thick, carefully add 10% water, to the bottle and shake well. It will then flow much easier.

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26. LESSON 17 — OTHER THINGS IN YOUR LANDSCAPE Continued Like People, Animals, Birds and Boats etc. BIRDS Continued In this final example, of the importance of birds in your landscapes, the actual subject as well as the car, (an old Trabant), is the Chickens that use it as their home. But is the car the star, or is it actually the Chickens ? I love painting chickens, and they are one of the easiest of subjects to include in your paintings. If you study them, they are almost symmetrical in shape, and they are great to draw, as they stay relatively still, head down, pecking at the ground most of the time. HOW TO DO IT ?

Note The similarity in shape between the Chicken and the triangle, and try and remember this, when you draw them. STEP 1 Draw your chickens, (above) and keep the grouping of them harmonious. Chickens seem to like each others company andey would normally move around in small groups, like here.

STEP 2 Paint the background around the group of birds, and add a slight ‗dark‘ to the bottom for ‗grounding‘. Once Dry paint your chicken here I used raw weak Burnt Sienna.

STEP 3 (left) Using a clean moist, small round brush, mop out the highlights, on the light, top left of the chicken‘s back shape. Blend the area with a moist brush so it merges together. It‘s this merging, that gives the 3d effect. STEP 5 (right) Strengthen the ‗grounding‘ and shadows for the birds, and finally add the character to the birds by painting, beaks, feathers and feet.

Always vary the colours of your birds, as no two are identical.

STEP 4 (above) Add some dark colour to the brown wash, and whilst the brown paint is still damp, paint the dark, bottom right side of the birds.

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26. LESSON 17 — OTHER THINGS IN YOUR LANDSCAPE Continued Like People, Animals, Birds and Boats etc. BOATS There are so many variations with boats, as there was with buildings earlier, that if there was ever a time when ‗really looking‘ and copying a subject were imperative, boats is it. Boat owners are sticklers for detail too, so what looks like a jumble of ropes to a casual observer, layman (or an Artist) looks completely different to a sailor. The fact is, that every rope has a function, and goes from one specific point to another for a reason. The best way to portray boats is to be very careful about the shape, it‘s proportions and how it sits in the water, and suggest just enough detail, so the viewer adds the missing fine detail, like rigging etc. By nature they are a very odd shape, designed to cut through water efficiently, and I have seen them portrayed as a flatted figure of eight in the water by other artists. My best advice is to look very carefully, and sketch loosely, because there WILL be lots of alterations, until your happy, and copy what you see. Initially, side on or full front or full rear views are the easiest to start with. The most interesting shapes on boats though are 3/4 views either from the front or back of the boat.

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26. LESSON 17 — OTHER THINGS IN YOUR LANDSCAPE Continued Like People, Animals, Birds and Boats etc. BOATS Continued Sketching and drawing different types of boats and yachts, and all the stuff that goes with them, is the best way to learn about how to draw them. If you are lucky enough to live by the sea, or a river, spend time, getting a feel, for all the different types, of water going craft.

WHAT TO LOOK FOR ? Each particular type of water going craft has it‘s own particular characteristics and spotting them and copying them is the key. I asked a yachtsman friend if there was a formula for yachts as I had noticed some similarities, however large or small they were. It turned out to be the case.

The height of the mast is at least 1 1/2 times the length of the hull

As you can see, simply by observing the characteristics of yachts, it became apparent how to draw and paint them. They are in fact very easy to portray, very simply as you can see above , even in this 3/4 view. The yacht gives the illusion of not much wind, or it would be tipped over more, and the leading edge of the sail billowing out more, with bow wave if moving faster too. So as you see, observing well, then copying simply, is the key to painting great boats, in your land, or seascapes, in Watercolour.

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26. LESSON 17 — OTHER THINGS IN YOUR LANDSCAPE Continued Like People, Animals, Birds and Boats etc. BOATS Continued Obviously, it goes without saying, that the portrayal of your boats and yachts, in a convincing way, also is not only to do with the way you depict them, but also about there settings, the water and there reflections too. When painting any landscape, or seascapes, I like to include vertical lines, like telegraph poles etc. so painting boat masts, and their rigging is a particular favourite of mine. Because of the simplicity of most boat shapes, basically a flat triangle that is higher at the front than the back. It‘s actually possible (and also very convincing), to paint a whole boat, or even lots of boats, as here using only one brush, the 1‘‘ flat brush. The flat brush, also ensures that everything stays perfectly horizontal (for the water) and perfectly vertical for the masts. It‘s also invaluable for rigging, but is probably for later, when your confidence will inevitable grow. Most beginners find it easier to control the fine rigger. As the name suggests it was designed for painting rigging. HOW TO DO IT ? STEP 1 Lightly sketch your boat shapes, onto your paper. Have one dominant boat, and the others to play supporting roles. These will then be painted in a less detailed way. Remember in the earlier lesson about composition, that you would try and avoid having two things, (albeit trees, or here boats) that are the same size. Also try and keep mast heights, thickness's, and the distances between them random throughout, and try See how the paint and avoid repetition or ‗patterns‘ emerging. is weaker towards the horizon, achieving recession

Keep boat masts random and vary heights and thickness's

STEP 2 Using your sky colour, here Cobalt Blue with a touch of Light Red loosely paint your sky, using a large round brush. Keep the sky simple if you want the emphasis to stay on the boats. Paint the water in the same colour, and paint around your jumble of boat shapes. Note how the sky get lighter as you get lower towards the horizon.

STEP 3 Dry your first sky and water wash with a blow dryer on slow speed. Once your paper is completely dry, (which is important if your boat shapes are to be sharp against the background) use either a flat brush, or shown here, a medium round brush, paint in your boat shapes in varying shades of a neutral tint of your sky blue mixed with just a little Paynes Grey. Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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26. LESSON 17 — OTHER THINGS IN YOUR LANDSCAPE Continued Like People, Animals, Birds and Boats etc. BOATS Continued STEP 4 Paint each of your boats in turn, varying the colour mix slightly, for each one. The ones closest would be darker, than the ones further away. Whilst the paint is still wet, take a clean slightly moistened brush and mop out the lighter side of the boats, which will indicate the bow shape of the boat. Use a sideways motion when mopping out. The resulting marks, will then indicate the contours of the boats hulls. STEP 5 Moisten your water area slightly, and roughly copy the shapes of your boats light and dark areas, to form the reflections. Add some darker colour (a touch more Paynes Grey into your existing paint mix) and using a flat brush just lightly dab under each boat to ‗ground‘ it in the water. This will make the boats look as if they are sat in the water. Leaving some gaps of white is ok, and adds to this illusion. STEP 6 With the same darker mix, and still into your dampened paper, lightly dab a reflection in the water, below where each mast is going to be. Now, using the same mix on the dry area, but using a smaller flat or round brush, paint the dock, and it‘s reflections into the water. The reflections can be random, and broken to indicate some movement in the water but you have to be quite accurate for them to be convincing. See the earlier chapter on painting water and their reflections. STEP 7 Now, using a strong mix of your blue, and more Paynes Grey, start carefully dabbing in the jumble of masts. Vary the thickness and colour of each mast and the distance in between them. On calm water they would all be about vertical, but on moving water some may be slightly skew. Use your flat brush, quite dry and almost vertical to ensure accurate masts. Try a rigger instead if you prefer. STEP 8 Finally build up the jumble of masts, and rigging, always keeping in mind that some are further back than others, so would be painted more lightly, and in paler colours. TOP TIP Finish off with all the stuff associated with When using a flat boats , like fenders, flags and railings. These brush for things like would all be painted very carefully using masts and rigging , your smallest rigger, round and flat brushes test the accuracy of your line on the and the strongest paints. It‘s these ‗sharps‘ border of your paper and ‗highlights ‗ that will make your marine before moving to paintings more accomplished. your painting. Keep dabbing until it‘s ok.

Note the wiggly lines for the masts reflections ...

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27. LESSON 18 — PAINTING STILL LIFE AND FLOWERS Both still life, and floral paintings, are ones I have painted, not only as subjects in their own right, but also for Greetings Cards. STILL LIFE PAINTINGS Whilst admitting that this is not my favourite subject matter. I do like the ability to record everyday items, and painting them for posterity, as it were. Still Life subjects were the preferred subject matter of many famous painters. Though mostly it seems, in oils, rather than Watercolours. Traditionally they are ‗staged‘ and carefully arranged, as was done with the large picture on the left. When arranging your still life subjects unless they are ‗as is‘ try and go for items with varied heights, shapes and textures. Arranging them on a nice shiny table or on fabric helps too. FLORAL PAINTING Botanical painting, is a whole subject of its own, and there are plenty of examples on the subject. I feel that the medium of Watercolours is particularly suited to painting flowers, and I always enjoy the results. The colours in Nature, and the way combinations of colours are used is a joy to an Artist. Wet into Wet techniques are fantastic to accurately record those gentle fusions of colours in real life. They are also very popular with the buying public. It seems that flowers, and pictures of them, have the ability to lift the spirits, either as Greetings Cards or as paintings. The massive variety is a constant challenge to an artist. Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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27. LESSON 18 — PAINTING STILL LIFE AND FLOWERS Continued STILL LIFE PAINTING HOW TO DO IT ? STEP 1 Setting it up Firstly, choose your subjects carefully, and try to theme them. In this example, of rustic, rural life in Bulgaria, I used some old Antique bric a brac and arranged them on an old barrel in my garden. If you consider the two separate arrangements, on the right, you can see that in the nearest picture, the old barrel is almost hidden by some of the items. The jumble of bric-a brac items aren‘t clear about their relationship to each other either. By removing the hand brush, sickle and the third item, suddenly the picture tells a story, about a lone shepherd, and how new and old items for storing liquid, like Rakia and Wine have evolved through the ages. STEP 2 Carefully and lightly sketch your still life subjects, I have drawn them in quite strongly here, so you can see them clearly. When I photographed the scene, it had been raining, and was quite dull, but if you look closely you can see that the light was coming from the right. So I marked an arrow on the margin of my paper, for reference, throughout the painting process. As you can see I decided on a slightly flatter viewpoint for my painting. I‘ve always thought it bad practise, to photograph anything from too high, including animals and children, so I got down to a lower level, so it had less of an arial feel. STEP 3 I didn‘t want the background to feature very much in my painting so just went for a green wash. Wet the paper but not too much and leave some gaps of dry paper between the vertical strokes using a large round brush. It‘s ok, to roughly go around your still life subjects with the water, as it‘s not critical at this stage. If you have any puddles where the paper ‗cockles‘ just dry your brush on kitchen towel, and mop it up. STEP 4 Using a mix of Cobalt Blue and Gamboge, and a medium round brush, paint the background, taking care around your still life items. If any colour seeps into the foreground items, mop it out straight away, with a clean, slightly moistened brush. Vary the mix of your paint, which adds interest, and atmosphere, to the finished painting. Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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27. LESSON 18 — PAINTING STILL LIFE AND FLOWERS Continued STILL LIFE PAINTING HOW TO DO IT ? Continued STEP 5 Dry your painting slowly, with a hairdryer on the slowest warm setting. Once it‘s dry, use a sharpened wax candle, to rub some wax, onto the areas, where there is wear, and texture, like on the gourd, and on the barrel. Use this sparingly, as it‘s difficult to see where you've been, until you put paint on the area. STEP 6 Starting with the lightest, furthest away item, the gourd, paint it using a weak mix of Raw Umber and a touch of Cobalt Blue. Paint the flask carefully, using a small round brush. Remembering which side the light is coming from, lift out the highlights, and add the darks shadows, and grounding. Take care to retain the shape of the things in front, as they are difficult to rescue later on in the painting. STEP 7 Using a similar mix, but now including Yellow Ochre, paint the light top parts, of the broken lid, and also the light, top parts of each of the sections of the barrel. Again take care to go around the items, sitting on the lid. STEP 8 Move forward to the jug and cup, and using a mix of Light Red and Cobalt Blue, and the same small round brush, paint the jug and beaker. Then lift the highlights from the light side, and add darks, shadows, and grounding to the dark side of the jug, and barrel lid, by adding slightly more Paynes Grey. Mop out where the light areas of pattern are, with a moist brush. STEP 9 With the edge of your flat brush, ‗drybrush‘ some areas of rust onto the metal rims, and panels. Then, using a flat brush, about the same size as the wooden panels, and a strongish mix of Burnt Umber and Paynes Grey, paint each panel separately following the contours of the barrel. Take care around the pole.

NOTE HOW THE PAINT WON‘T STICK TO THE WAXED AREA

STEP 10 Using a weak neutral tint, paint the handle of the staff. Then with a combination of rigger and flat brush (for variety of your lines) and almost neat Black and Burnt Umber paint, add lines between the panels and drag some drybrush strokes onto the barrel, to look like the texture of rough old timber. Add shadow to the underside of the rims, to give them depth, and also the inside, darkest part of the barrel, with the same mix. Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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27. LESSON 18 — PAINTING STILL LIFE AND FLOWERS Continued STILL LIFE PAINTING HOW TO DO IT ? Continued

TOP TIP Ensure that your painting is ‘hard dry‘ before adding your ‗sharps‘ then they won‘t blur .

STEP 11 Using your rigger, and Jet Black paint, add ‗sharps‘ to your picture like knots, nails and cracks. Check the definition, of all the items in your still life and re-define them if needed, using the same colours still in your bowls, or re-mix them. An exact colour match isn‘t absolutely necessary, some variety will add to the overall atmosphere of your painting. You can see how the wax (circled right), went onto the metal rim, which was unintentional.

STEP 12 Now, turning your attention to the nearest object in your still life, the hand made shepherd‘s crook, define it‘s form, by adding lights (by lifting the damp paint with a moist brush) and darks on the shadow side by adding blue or black to your Yellow Ochre and Cobalt Blue mix as before. Carefully define the shape in front of all your other items of bric-a-brac. STEP 13 Using a flat brush and a weak Yellow Ochre and Cobalt Blue mix, define the top of the step and slab, before adding the shadow side, using your black mix from earlier. FINALLY Using your rigger, add all the fine coloured pattern, on the Jug and cup. Also add a few grasses, and ‗darks‘ between the slabs.

‗As you can see the painting is not a slavish copy of the original photograph and nor should it be, for that it is better to take a photograph and frame that ‗! A good still life, records everyday objects, and items, and can be even combined with your floral paintings too.

The Finished Painting ‗Still Life Bulgarian Rustic Style‘

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27. LESSON 18 — PAINTING STILL LIFE AND FLOWERS Continued PAINTING FLOWERS This final lesson on painting flowers, seems a fitting place to end, as nothing quite does justice, to the medium of Watercolour Painting, as the subject of flower painting does. The freshness of translucent washes, and the way wet into wet, bleeds into each other, makes painting floral subjects, one of my favourites. As I said in the introduction to this lesson Botanical Painting is an Art Form in itself. My own interpretation of floral subjects is more impressionistic, than the detailed, more formal study of the subject, and I like to just feel the joy, and try and echo the vibrany and freshness of colours created by Mother Nature. My personal ‗Koran‘ so to speak, apart from observing plants and flowers in their natural habitat, is my very old, but very trusty, Readers Digest Book of Garden Plants and Flowers. Nothing echoes life, quite as much, as the bright red of the Wild Poppy, or the glorious yellow of a species abundant here in Bulgaria, The Sunflower. In the very earliest introduction to my book, and throughout, I have always stressed the need to mix paint colours, with a second, or even third colour, and never to use them unmixed. Floral subjects , however are the only exceptions that prove the rule as they say.

Whilst I would never use an unmixed green from the tube, which I think looks completely un-natural, the vibrancy and acidity of Lemon Yellow and Gamboge, are perfect yellows for Sunflowers, as are the reds of Cadmium for Poppies & Roses and Cobalt Blue, for Hyacinths and the like. SO GO CRAZY WITH COLOUR Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

A Selection of my many floral subjects, which are great as greetings cards, as well as paintings.

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27. LESSON 18 — PAINTING STILL LIFE AND FLOWERS Continued PAINTING FLOWERS Continued HOW TO DO IT ? The actual painting process for impressionistic floral paintings, is very simple and quick indeed. As you will see with this simple demonstration. STEP 1 Lightly draw your main flowers onto your paper. Because of the purity and lightness of the subject, the petals being so thin and delicate, that you can see light through their shapes, try and keep your drawing to a minimum. Any lines you draw at this stage will almost definitely be removed, at the end to reveal the delicate nature of the subject. Bear in mind too, the third rule of composition, shown by the orange lines. Here I am painting a spray of brightly coloured flowers, in a solid jug, which is standing on a table, in front of a wall.

1/3rd Rule

STEP 2 Paint your background, using vertical strokes of the brush, which can be a medium round brush or a flat brush. It‘s ok to leave gaps, and try and vary the colour mix, and amount of water used, which will then look like a stuccoed textured wall. Here I used Yellow Ochre with a touch of Cobalt Blue, just to deaden the colour a little. Paint carefully around your flower shapes, and paint in ‗gaps‘, as circled. STEP 3 Once your wall is dry, paint your table, here using Cerulean & Cobalt Blue. Use horizontal brush strokes, painting carefully around the jug. Pay particular attention in areas like inside the handle, circled. Add some Paynes Grey, and add shadows, and grounding marks, while the wash is still wet. NOTE When choosing background colours, try and avoid those that are in your flowers ,where possible , but choose colours that compliment them .

STEP 4 Using a mix of Cobalt Blue and Cadmium Red, on a small round brush, paint your jug. Here the light, is coming from the left, so mop out the highlights, on the top left of the jug shape, not forgetting the handle too. Add some Payne‘s Grey to your mix, and add the ‗darks‘, to the bottom right, of the jug. STEP 5 Using a small round brush paint one set of flowers, here red one‘s. To make your flowers convincing, they should be painted randomly, changing the angle of your brush, from side to side, and using the shape of the brushes bristles, to form the petal shapes. Whilst the flowers are still slightly damp, drop in a touch of Black or Brown, into the centre of each red flower. Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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27. LESSON 18 — PAINTING STILL LIFE AND FLOWERS Continued PAINTING FLOWERS Continued HOW TO DO IT ? STEP 6 Now mix a second colour, here a rich purple, using Cadmium Red and Cobalt Blue, and paint another set of flowers, again making sure that they are fairly randomly painted, and altering the direction of your paint brush. Alter the size of your round brush too, that way the flowers will vary in size and shape. Add dark to the centre of some of the flowers, but not them all. Then lift out some highlights (circled). STEP 7 Repeat the process, with the next set of flowers, here the Yellow one‘s, using almost pure Lemon Yellow. Overlap some of these light coloured flowers, (which could be yellow or white), but make sure the dark flowers are hard dry, before you paint the light ones over them, or the stronger colour will bleed into the light ones. Once again, add centres, and lift out highlights, with a damp brush. STEP 8 Using a green (here Lemon Yellow mixed with Cobalt Blue), and a rigger, carefully paint the gaps between the flowers, darkening the green mix, in the centre, and bottom of the bouquet of flowers. Indicate some stalks, and stems, and the occasional slender leaves outside of the floral arrangement. Paint some stems in front of flowers, some behind, and some that come and go. STEP 9 Add some Paynes Grey to your, now darker, green mix, and as the stems and foliage enter the jug, make them almost pure Black. Add some shadows, and extra flowers, that would inevitably spill over the edge of the jug. Define the remaining visible parts of the dark side of the jug, and spout, as here. Finally add some shadows onto the jug surface, onto the table, and on the wall behind.

Whether you are painting formal flower arrangements, as we have done here, or flowers in their natural environment, the theory of how to paint them, is exactly the same, and these few Golden Rules, apply to both. GOLDEN RULES FOR FLOWERS     

KEEP DRAWING TO A MINIMUM TRY TO PAINT IN AN UPWARDS DIRECTION, AND VARY THE ANGLES PAINT FLOWERS AND LEAVES RANDOMLY AVOID ‗PATTERNS‘ THAT LOOK UN-NATURAL FINALLY KEEP YOU WORK CLEAN AND FRESH Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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28. LESSON 19 — PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER, THE PAINTING PROCESS Now that we have finished the Lessons in my book, I hope that you have gathered that by ‗KEEPING IT SIMPLE‘, and following a few simple guidelines, and processes, that with practise you will be able to approach any subject matter with ease. The list below, has been done without pictures, on purpose, so you can use it as a checklist, when you paint. HOW TO DO IT ? THE PAINTING CHECKLIST 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21.

Decide on your subject matter, and be clear about, roughly how you want it to look, when it‘s finished. Decide on your colour palette, you want to use, and prepare the mixes, or at least have your dishes and paints clean, and ready to use. Get your two pots of clean water. Tape your paper to your board (if you‘re having a pre wash, on your paper, try and prepare this the previous day, as it may take some drying, so the paper is perfectly flat). Or if you‘re stretching it, do it the day before, if possible. If your referring to photos or a sketch have them nearby, or on your pc or laptop. Mark your 1/3rd composition marks, and an arrow, to show where the sun, or other light source is coming from, so you can refer to it, throughout the painting. Sketch your scene lightly onto your paper. It can be quite detailed, or hardly anything at all, depending on how complicated the subject matter is. Sometimes the wash comes after the sketch, so you can lift highlights, out of the wash. Consider where your highlights are on your painting at the start, and use any masking fluid, or other resists, like wax at this stage, and let them dry fully, before proceeding further. Split your painting up, clearly in your mind, into planes. This will help you to decide how strong each colour mix needs to be. Each one stronger than the last, as you work forward into the foreground. Now paint the furthest plane, usually the sky. Now Paint the middle ground. Now paint the foreground. Now paint the highlights, and ‗brights‘ (this is what really makes a painting come alive, so you can be quite bold, and strong with colour now. Half close your eyes, and make sure that there are no tonal, or lining up issues, if there are, correct them now. Sign your painting, once it‘s hard dry. If you want to, remove all the pencil lines, using a soft clean putty rubber, but make sure everything is hard dry first, or you may smudge it. Carefully cut through the tape, holding it to your board. Carefully, and without tearing the paper, remove the masking tape gently, to reveal the white border. Trim up square, using a guillotine, or trimmer, if you have one. Add any titles, website or email address, and any details, to the back of your work. Mount or frame, for best effect.

Note Masking fluid should be removed from each area, as it has been completed, so this should be done zonally, and may be removed in stages, depending on the painting. Remove using a clean finger, or a clean putty rubber. Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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29. LESSON 20 — FINDING YOUR OWN STYLE -GOOD OR BAD THING ? Finding your own style, is your unique signature, your own take on things you see, and will naturally develop into your own ‗look‘, Something that only you or record in your own personal way. So that, whatever subject you paint, it will always have that, ‗it‘s one of his, or hers‘ style to it. Having your own ‗look‘ can be restrictive in itself though, and can lead to predictability, and sameness. Whilst some stability is called for especially when learning (with a restricted palette of just a few colours, as I recommend in this book, for instance). But, at some point, you will find yourself heading off naturally, and starting to make your own decisions, and having your own preferences, about subject matter, colours, techniques, and styles. If you look online, you will see that, probably my own style, is based on an amalgamation, with my own twist, of Ron Ranson‘s loose approach, and John Blockley‘s love of textures. Also in evidence, would be the capturing of the weather by fellow Yorkshireman Ashley Jackson, and finally, the master himself, the late Rowland Hilder, who‘s quality, and handling of the medium, I can only dream of emulating. His hard back books were always a special Christmas treat every year from family members. YOU MAY LIKE TO TRY There are a few simple tips you may like to try to help evolve your style which may include :1. Consider always tinting your paper the same colour. My personal favourite is tints of Yellow, and Ochre. Turner used light blue extensively, I believe. 2. Always add a ‘signature‘ key colour, to every mix, in a painting, which gives it a certain uniformity and harmony. Try a small quantity of Ultramarine Blue say. 3. Stick with one particular palette (set of colours). Though not a great believer in ‗copying‘ ,another thing I like to do, is to study a particular work, by another artist, and using the techniques I know, try to capture the essence of that painting. Just being in the same ‗groove‘ as the artist, and trying to do what they did, and feel what they felt, has helped me personally. I used to do this with paintings by Sergeant, Hilder ,and Turner, and learned much from them.

Have a look on the internet, and in your local Library, at the Masters works, but also on the numerous online Galleries, where there are many superb New Artists, featuring their work. You can also join in, by uploading your own work, and get critiqued too. Presumably you bought this ebook, because you wanted to learn the basics, which by now, should start to feel comfortable to you. It could be that like me, you find joy, and satisfaction, painting pure clean land, town and seascapes, and to record decay and weather, in all it‘s glory. Or you may end up throwing painted models, against a canvas, or making modern Art, or trying other mediums, only you know which direction you want to go.

One thing is certain, only you can decide that, and the journey has never been so inexpensive, and accessible to all, so enjoy the ride. This, my first book is the culmination of a lifetime of learning, and just a few months hard work. I hope you have enjoyed the fruits of my labours. Above all, relax, and enjoy your own personal Art Watercolour Journey, I am !

Martin Stephenson (Stevo)

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30. PRESENTATION PRESENTING YOUR WORK The presentation of your watercolours, really depends on what you want to do with them, and if you intend to try and sell them. It may be, that you just paint for your own pleasure, and you may be happy just to keep them clean, and flat in a drawer, though a cheap and durable portfolio, will hold lots of paintings, in a clean, dust free environment. The white border created with the masking tape gives a nice border to your paintings anyway, and they are quite presentable as they are. Though there is nothing as nice as a professionally, framed picture, with a carefully selected mount, and frame. CARE OF YOUR WATERCOLOURS Watercolours do tend to move, depending on moisture, temperature, and humidity, so they are best stored flat. When you move a painting, to a different room, or house, you would normally expect it to ‗cockle‘ for a few days, before it settles, and acclimatises to its new environment, this is quite normal. A professional framer usually only attaches the painting at the top, inside of the mount, and that way, it is allowed to move inside the frame. FRAMES If you do decide to have your work framed, there is an endless selection of frames, from man made, to real timber, in hundreds of colours and profiles. I like to select a standard frame throughout, especially for an Exhibition, usually in a mid oak colour, as it‘s a colour usually found in my landscapes and compliments most interior decorations. MOUNTS In an Exhibition, as with the frames, I use a standard mount throughout, and cream is my preferred colour, for a similar reason as the frames, as I always use off white as highlights in most of my watercolours. HANGINGS The best quality hangings are metal, and either picture hooks, or plugged screws are the most secure ways of hanging your pictures, on the wall.

There is nothing quite like seeing your work well framed, and hanging on a wall.

It is possible to make both your own mounts, and frames, but it‘s difficult to get professional looking results, so I would strongly recommend having your pictures professionally framed, if funds allow. Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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31. MARKETING HOW TO SELL YOUR WORK, AND WHETHER YOU WANT TO The way you market your pictures, will depend if you want to sell them, or not. If your not interested in selling them, then please skip this section, as it‘s unlikely to be of any interest to you. There are several ways to sell your pictures, and the price you get for them will depend on many factors, and may include the subject matter, your location, target market and competition. It goes without saying that when marketing your work it should be to a good standard and well presented. The marketing of individual‘s works has never been easier, with the advent of the internet. I list below, some of my marketing activities, for your information. Some or all of which, may be relevant to your own art work, and where you would like to try to sell it. I have tried to list these in the order that they usually happen naturally. FRIENDS AND FAMILY This is usually the first avenue for budding artists, to show, sell, or give your work to family and friends, and is a good start, to a career or hobby as an artist. Though this adulation is nice, please take it for what it is. It‘s only when you put your work onto the open market, that you will see the true value, and criticism of it too, which should be considered as constructive, especially if from a respected source. COMMISSIONS When friends, family, and colleagues, know you paint, they can be inclined to give you orders for Birthdays and Special Occasions. What you charge is usually the most difficult thing, just try and do yourself justice, and don‘t undersell your talent. SELLING DIRECT TO THE PUBLIC / DOING LIVE DEMONSTRATIONS If you have the confidence nothing draws a crowd like an artist painting, and spreading out your best work will inevitably lead to Sales. Just check your local laws before doing this. It‘s possible to sell work after doing a demonstration live, but this can be quite intimidating at first. Try and plan ahead and practise your subject matter first, and maybe even sketch the drawing lightly so only you can see it. Though working vertically is best for everyone to see, consider working flat on the floor or on a low table. If you do paint vertically, on an easel say, be prepared to mop up quickly and avoid the wettest of subjects. SELLING TO ART GALLERIES Art Galleries lifeblood, (stock), is to have fresh new work, all of the time, and you‘ll soon know, if they like your work or not. They can be a cagey lot though, and you must be prepared for rejection, and disappointment. Walking into a Gallery with your life‘s work, and maybe even your life long dream, under your arm, is daunting at first, and is the opposite, to the adulation, you may have received to date, from well meaning family, and friends.

I remember one of my first approaches to a Gallery in Bulgaria. The owner flicked through the work so fast, and I was thinking ‗he hates them‘. He then went back through the pile, and sorted them out into two piles, again all very quickly, and I did then wonder. He then took over 20 of my pictures…….. and smiled at me ! Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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SELLING TO GALLERIES Continued The point, about the owner of that particular Gallery, and I dare say most others, is that they know their clients, and what they like, and also the prices they are willing to pay, so, for them, the selection process is quite simple., You soon get to know if your on the right track, after a few Gallery visits, and it can be a very sobering time. I know it was for me. But the way to deal with that is to take any constructive criticism on the chin, and go away, and improve before returning. The Galleries are unlikely to take your work if it‘s amateurish or poorly presented , don‘t forget they have their reputation to consider too. For most struggling artists (and I am no exception) framing costs are inhibitive, but producing work, is relatively cheap. Try just putting an inexpensive mount over them, or even just mounting them on co-ordinating coloured card. It‘s unusual for Galleries to buy your work outright, but usually to pay you, when they sell them, and typically charge 20-35% Commission. ONLINE GALLERIES This is the simplest, quickest, and easiest way of getting your Art seen, and your name out there, though in my experience it‘s more for lookers, than it is for buyers, so treat it as such. There is a list of such sites, in the ‗links page‘ on my website. Just go to Google and type in ‗online art galleries‘ and you will see how many there are. They all work in a similar way, you register, upload your work, criticize others work, and see what comes back. Because these sites are pretty much unregulated, they can attract art from all and sundry, so the standards can be very low. An old boss of mine use to use the phrase ‗look at the man‘ when considering advice, which has always stood me in good stead. It is good advice here too. In other words if someone raves about your work, look at theirs, to see if they are qualified to critique. Be gracious, but only seriously consider criticism from good artists, and respond accordingly. I have met some very good, ‗virtual friends‘ worldwide, in this way and Artists generally are good fun and nice folk. YOUR OWN WEBSITE Again, it‘s never been easier, or cheaper, to have your own website. I am no pc geek, but even I can easily maintain my own site. My own website www.artstevo.com has been completely designed by me, with the help of a template from my hosting company. These types of DIY website companies products, are easy to use ,cheap and are usually based on Wizards that just guide you through the process. This means you end up with a professionally looking worldwide presence. Beware though as once you master the way they work, you keep coming up with new ideas for your site. I remember saying ‗oh I just want a single page, telling people my email address, and showing a picture of my work‘. A friend did it for me, and I include it below. It‘s now grown to about 30 fully interactive pages, that I maintain myself daily.

These templates also let you use bits from them, for business stationery, like letterheads and business cards, which gives you a fully co-ordinating package, and a professional, corporate identity. Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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LOCAL PRESS/ RADIO AND TV I my opinion, forget advertising, it simply doesn't work. All you get, is more calls from people, who think you have an advertising Budget to spend. Leaflets drops, are also not a realistic option. What you really need, is a ‗story‘ that‘s unique or unusual. That way, you send Press Releases out to all relevant media, and get a news story which more people are likely to read, and also is completely free. What you need to bear in mind is that Newspapers and Magazine‘s are scratching their heads, trying to fill their publications, every single, week, day or month, so are only too happy to feature an interesting ‗story‘ especially, if you make it easy for them. So write the story yourself as if you‘re the reporter talking in the third party.

An example of this type of feature, (and I have had many), was when I painted a picture of a Trabant being used as a chicken hutch in our village, and an abandoned Gaz truck. I thought that they were unusual subjects to paint, so I thought ‗I wonder who might be interested in these pictures‘ so searched East European car clubs on Google. Three months later, the paintings, a story, and a free full page advert, were all featured, inside and on the covers of the UK‘s Trabant Owners Magazine. The feature cost me nothing, except an email or two, and a couple of digital pictures with associated third party writing. It immediately lead to sales, and more exposure. If you can also get to know your local Press, T.V. and Radio reporters, all the better, then just send them regular activities, and your news, with pictures, by e-mail. SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES AND BLOGS I‘m not sure that I am qualified to give you advice on these, but all I know is that you join them, talk about what your doing regularly, and somehow it attracts attention from the world. Try Facebook, Twitter, Blogspot and the like. I have absolutely no idea how they work or why, but just know that they do. And they give you opportunities to constantly plug your work and your website. The links created by them get your website up the rankings too, so just join every group you can, and it just snowballs. NETWORKING AND CHARITIES Telling everyone you know about your work, is also important, so don‘t be shy when it comes to heightening awareness of what you do. There are also more structured, virtual, and real networking sites too, so just join everything, including your favourite Charities, and Local Rotary Clubs. Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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PUBS, HOTELS AND RESTAURANTS These establishments, are a good way of getting your work on local walls, and to get your name known. Like Galleries, it‘s unlikely someone will buy your work outright, but more likely that they will pay you a commission, if they sell something. This can vary from nothing to 40% or even more. The costs involved, are that the work would deteriorate badly, in those environments, unless they were framed. I took all my unsold, framed pictures to one Restaurant, for a month after my Exhibition, and then on to another, when I felt they had sold all they were going to. If you stick to standard sizes for your pictures, and also AVOID the temptation to add and extra 1‘‘ onto the bottom of the mounts, you can then swap any unsold paintings with new work, and either portrait or landscape pictures will still fit in the frames, if you change the format. EXHIBITIONS Whilst relatively inexperienced, having had just one major Exhibition under my belt, I felt that I learned really fast, leading up to, and during the Exhibition. It was with my fellow villager, and friend Geoff Taylor who is a keen, traditional Photographer. I think it‘s important to theme things, so they are easy to market. We called ours ‘Two Englishmen Abroad‘ and certainly with cheap desktop packages, like Publisher to produce your own cheap professional flyers, and advertising material. These should be distributed widely, leading up to, and during, the Exhibition. The Exhibition was a great success, and made a healthy profit. I think it‘s important to present well at an Exhibition, so I spent much time, deciding on the order of paintings, so they followed on from each other, and also alternated the format of the pictures where I could. Each painting was priced individually, and had a descriptive hand written sign, on watercolour paper, telling the story of each painting. The secret to a good Exhibition is :         

PROMOTE WELL BEFOREHAND PRESS RELEASE THE MEDIA ENSURE YOU ARE ORGANISED ALLOW LOTS OF TIME TO SET UP RESEARCH THE PRICES BE COMMITTED TO IT ENSURE IT‘S EASY FOR PEOPLE TO BUY SUPPLY PACKAGING MATERIALS PROVIDE DRINKS AND NIBBLES LOOK AFTER YOU VIP‘S & HAVE PLENTY OF PICTURES TAKEN WITH THEM Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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32. THE PAINTINGS & DRAWINGS The following pages (roughly in date order) and seen together for the first time ever anywhere, show all of my major original Watercolours, Graphite sketches and Pen and Inks that survive. Most of them are sold, and in Private Collections, and I thank the owners, for allowing me to reproduce them for my e-book. There are many others, in the UK, and elsewhere in the world, from my past painting stints, but most of my body of work, has been done since I started painting again, in Bulgaria in 2009. There are plans to reproduce my work for Limited Edition Print Runs in the future. Please let me know if these are of interest. These photographs may vary slightly, from the original paintings , due to the format of these pages. If you would like any original photographs, for Private Study Purposes, these are available, via email, for a small charge. All Images, and intellectual Artistic property rights to my original work ,are retained by me, Martin Stephenson, and are subject to International Copyright Law

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1 The Rock Pool for Julie NFS 2 Burnsall Barns S 3 Wall and Tree Study FS 4 Frozen Puddle S 5 More Snow on the way S 6 Nessebar Harbour S 7 Nessebar Old Harbour FS 8 Karnobat Centrum S 9 Track Cherkovo Lake S 10 Oil Rape seed fields S 11 Old School Doors S 12 The Blue Overalls S 13 Sharon (Ink on card) FS 14 Wall and Tree study (set of 4 pen and wash) S Notes 12 Was my first painting back 6/8 Donated to Charities 2 In Australia

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Poppies and Wall S Rape Seed Fields S Long Shadows S Coloured Wash S Cherkovo Church S

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Still Life S Abandoned Workhorse FS Fruit Seller Sozopol S Fine Residence for pigeons S Bourgas Pier S

Further Notes 20 Abandoned workhorse was featured on the back cover of Trabant Owners Magazine 23/30 Are different views of the same building Winter—Veg Shop ,Summer—Gallery 24 Was a structure in my back garden until I sat in the hammock ouch !

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32. THE PAINTINGS & DRAWINGS Continued WATERCOLOURS 31

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Bourgas Pier S The Roof Garden Bourgas FS Dining Out with a view S Sozopol Naval College S Gone Fishing Cherkovo S Antimovo Magazine S

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Trawler at Sozopol S 33 Cherkovo Bridge S Karnobat Hill S 36 Misty Field Cherkovo S Karnobat Church S 39 Cherkovo Centrum S A Fish out of Water S 42 Bluebell Wood S Lunch in the Lynham style S Karnobat Old and New S

Further Notes 34 The Roof Garden Bourgas is I think my best picture to date but strangely is unsold. 45/46 Were paintings I did of these very distinctive shops in Bulgaria one in the next village and the other in Karnobat. I gave the paintings to the shops owners.

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32. THE PAINTINGS & DRAWINGS Continued WATERCOLOURS 48

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Sozopol Naval College V11 S 48 Sozopol Marina Bar S 49 Sozopol Headland S 50 Safe Haven Sozopol S Sozopol Chimney S 52 The Bag Lady Sozopol S 53 Old Wooden Boat S 54 The Onion Collectors S The Importance of the Blue Barrels S 56 Venice S 57 The Lovers Sozopol S 58 Karnobat Panorama S Sozopol Panorama from The Kalithea Restaurant S 60 Rock near Rusokastro S

Further Notes 47 This was version 2 of the scene, version 1 (which I think was superior ) now in a friends Private Collection). 59 Painted after many smaller studies as a commission and remains my largest work to date. 52 The stall owner here was actually on laptop, but I changed it for reading material. 56 Is a small study of a future painting. 58 Was bought by the Mayor of Karnobat for his Private Collection 60 The Rock called ‘Rupka the Dupka‘ (or something similar) is the stuff of local folklore, and was painted as a wedding present .

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To see all of my current and newest works keep having a look at my site

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61 Bluebells S 62 Bourgas Panorama FS 63 Cormorants Cherni Vrah FS 64 Lukoil Plant Bourgas FS 65 Bourgas Flats FS 66 Cherkovo Church FS 67 Misty Lakeside S 68 Dining Out Sepia S 69 Karnobat Clock Tower S 70 Poppies in Cornfield FS 71 Deere John FS 72 Night Sail Sozopol FS 73 Nessebar Windmill FS 74 Snow Scene Karnobat S 75 Monday is Washing Day FS 76 Recording The Last Chrysanthemums S Further Notes 62 This painting was the first wide format painting I tried , and subsequently was cut down twice to fit smaller Portfolio‘s losing the left hand bush and the right hand pylon. 74 Was painted for my very first You Tube Tutorial and given away as a Christmas Card.

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Seven Sunflowers S 78 Sozopol Centrum FS Opposite my house S 81 Magazine, Magazine Sozopol Church FS 84 Sozopol from the sea S Trabbi, Fallen Icon to Chicken Shack FS Woodland Path S 89 Cormorants near Cherni The Lone Tree FS 91 Spring Hedgerow FS

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Further Notes 81 Was the second version of this subject. Magazine is Bulgarian for shop, so one that sells magazines would be called …. hence the title ! 84 Was the original of this subject. 85 This is the original version, with the swastika graffiti on the wall, subsequently removed on the painting but not on the outside theatre in the Sea Gardens in Bourgas. 86 This painting was used for the front cover of the UK Trabant Owners Club Magazine in Autumn 2009 and though loved by many, remains unsold. 89 This is the second version of this subject which I love , this one included the raft and electric pylon.

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93 Co-Op Buildings Cherkovo S 94 Baba‘s Excursion S 95 Bourgas S 96 Bourgas Docks Portrait FS 97 Bourgas Docks FS 98 Column FS 99 Sunflowers S 100 Two Sunflowers FS 101 Bourgas Portrait FS 102 Field of Sunflowers FS 103 Bourgas Statue FS 104 Bourgas Old House 105 Bulgarian Rustic Still Life FS 106 Plovdiv Courtyard V1 S 107 First Spring Flowers S 108 Blue Flowers in a glass jug S Further Notes 94 This was from an idea from a friend, Toni in Sofia, and I love the comedy of it. 104 Is part of a painting of the house next to ‘The Roof Garden‘ in Bourgas. 106 Was a small test for my first work for a Gallery in Plovdiv.

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109 Manor House Plovdiv FS 110 White & Blue Church FS 111 Plovdiv Courtyard VII FS 112 Roman Amphitheatre Plovdiv FS 113 Lukoil Panorama Bourgas FS 114 Bourgas Panorama FS 115 First Spring Flowers FS 116 First Floral Painting S 117 Yachts S 118 First Snowdrops S 119 Candle and Holly S 120 Poppies S 121 Blue Flowers in a pot S 122 Vine Festival S 123 Xmas Hyacinth S 124 Abstract Card S 125 Orange Flowers S Further Notes 109-112 Were specially painted for The Autograph Gallery Old Town Plovdiv. 113/114 Were painted as a pair and as a more optimistic pair of panorama‘s of Bourgas, than my earlier works. The rest are from my popular Greetings Cards.

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33. THE DRAWINGS GRAPHITE DRAWINGS The Graphite drawings that follow, were sometimes done as sketches, for paintings to follow, or as studies in their own right, like the first two. The Pen and Inks, following, are all of older work, some over 20 years old, so apologies for the quality of some of the photographs, but they were taken before the idea of e-books were even invented, and only just after the advent of the Digital Camera. 126

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140 126 Sharon Laying NFS 127 Sharon Seated S 128 Gypsy Camp FS 129 Combine FS 130 Baba Marinka NFS 131 Sozopol Bay FS 132 Birds and Chickens Studies S 133 Sheep Study S 134 Horse and Cart Study S 135 Sinister Man FS 136 Always in a hurry FS 137 Wartburg FS 138 Trabbi FS 139 Donkey and Cart S 140 Onion Picker FS 141 Gypsy Georgie S Further Notes 131 Is the original sketch done over breakfast of Sozopol Bay. 129 Is the sketch for Deere John. 138 Is the first sketch, subsequently changed, for Icon to Chicken Shack. Others generally done, to use in future, or existing paintings.

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149 152 142 York 5 scenes on a circular Design NFS 143 Water Bag Bank Knaresborough NFS 144 York Version II Part Finished NFS 145 York City Walls NFS 146 Old Water Pump Leeds FS 147 Betty‘s Café Harrogate NFS 148 Farnhill near Bradford S 149 Trees Tonal Study FS 150 Poor Cow FS 151 Boats Study I FS 152 Boats Study II FS Further Notes 142/144 Were pre production drawings of layout for a China Plate Company in Harrogate, Yorkshire, England. 143 Is the only existing China Plate that was produced. 145 Is the City walls of the Town of my Birth, York. 146/147 Are studies from other towns and cities where I have lived Leeds and Harrogate. 151/152 Were sketches done on holiday of boats in Bridlington Harbour, Yorkshire. 150 This was done just for a bit of fun !

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34. THE DRAWINGS Continued PEN AND INK DRAWINGS The pen and ink drawings below, have been scanned, from the only record I have of this period of work, which are my treasured copies of the Yorkshire Magazine ‗Select‘ from 1991. I was commissioned regularly, to draw a series of views of Yorkshire Towns and Villages for this bi-monthly magazine. The average picture took me about 50 hours work, I had to give it up, due to other work commitments, but the exercise of drawing in shades of black and white, taught me much about tonal values. I was also there freelance Artist for some advertising work, for a little while. It seems a little self indulgent to include these, but felt it right to do so, as I was very proud of the quality, of this body of work, so please forgive my self indulgence. 152

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ALL FOR SELECT MAGAZINE - NONE FOR SALE 152 The Market Square Ripon 153 Mother Shipton‘s Pub, Knaresborough 155 Waterbag Bank , Knaresborough 156 West Tanfield 158 The Almshouses Harrogate 159 The Manor House Ilkley 161 Montpelier Mews , Harrogate 162 Knox Bridge, Harrogate 164 Church Street, Wetherby ONCE AGAIN APOLOGIES FOR THE QUALITY OF

154 Knaresborough viaduct 157 Ripon Cathedral 160 High Mill, Addingham 163 Ilkley Church THESE SCANNED IMAGES

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35. AND FINALLY FURTHER HELP AND SUPPORT Thank-you for buying this, my first ever book, ‗Watercolours for Beginners‘. I consider this to be just the start, and not the end of your purchase, and if you register your copy with me by e-mail, you will receive a quarterly newsletter, and be advised of news, amendments, and updates to the book. Also any new publications, other activities, Exhibitions, and any new tutorials, on Youtube. IF YOU FIND YOURSELF STUCK AND NEEDING HELP There are several ways that I may be able to help, including : Help by email [email protected]  Video help with Skype stevo1954 first session Free  Youtube Videos my youtube channel bedlam1954  Personal advice by phone on skype 0113-815-0028 or Mobile 089-237-5928 though please bear in mind that there is no GSM coverage because of our village‘s location, in a valley.  Free Art Club Membership, and Monthly Newsletter (if you want to go on the mailing list let me know)  Free Access to Students Page, on my website—password bedlam  Forums, details to be confirmed  Twitter, Blogs and Facebook just search for artstevo or Martin Stephenson If you need any help with any of the above just email me [email protected] IF YOU WANT SOME PERSONAL TUITION IN BULGARIA Black Sea Coast or Village Locations  Private Tuition—Groups and Personal Tuition, reasonable rates.  Art Club Sryada—Every Wednesday in Cherkovo, Burgas Region, near Karnobat.  Art Holidays at The Aztec Yoga Centre, Ravadinovo, near Sozopol, Bulgaria.  Art Holidays in Pomorie, Bulgaria.  Live Demonstrations to Groups, Business‘s and Corporations.  Commissions.  Teaching Children and Adults at The London Pub Bourgas WHERE CAN I SEE THE LATEST NEWS, ART WORK, EXHIBITIONS AND ACTIVITIES ?  The first port of call would always be my website, www.artstevo.com as this is updated by me, almost daily, so will always be relevant and up to date.  If you want to see my latest work, I post them on facebook and twitter first.  My Art can be seen on many online Galleries, just search for my name, the full list of these sites, is on the links page, of my website.  Links to my favourite artists sites, suppliers and friends is also on my website.  Further Reading—A list of books is featured on my website too. WHERE COULD WE MEET Apart from painting at home, or in my home Town of Karnobat, I can usually be found in the following locations year round :SUMMER—BLACK SEA COAST TOWNS OF SOZOPOL, NESSEBAR, BOURGAS & POMORIE WINTER—SKI RESORTS AND CAPITAL—BOROVETS, PLOVDIV AND SOFIA Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com

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36. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This book has been written over the last six months, and is the culmination of a lifetime of learning. 2009/2010 will be personally recorded as two of those ‗Anus Horibalis‘ for many personal reasons, but will also be the years I finally started to fulfil my life long ambition, to become an Artist. The Winter of this year, was one of the toughest in Living Memory, weather wise, in Bulgaria, with daytime Winter Temperatures in the –low 20‘s regularly. And I, amongst many others, found out the true value, of living in one room, like the locals do. My enforced incarceration, and the surprisingly reliable power, and internet connections, enabled me to concentrate on this labour of love, which I hope you have enjoyed. The sight of me typing in fingerless gloves, inside an Arctic sleeping Bag, with layer upon layer of clothes, and wearing scarves and a balaclava, were maybe not ideal conditions for writing my first book. But it kept the brain fairly sharp, (well as sharp as it ever was) ! The reason for writing this book is also that with age, memory fades, so I wanted a reference book, for me too. In addition to all the friends and family members I thanked at the beginning, I would also like to publicly thank the following special individuals who inspired me, helped me to keep going, as well as for their practical help, and support.

To my parents Norman and Aileen Stephenson, for giving us kids the freedom to express ourselves through Art, and Music. To my sister Julie, who inspired everyone she ever met, including me. To all the artists (living and dead) who‘s works have inspired me . To Geoff and Cath Taylor, for your unstinting help and support, and for Geoff‘s original encouragement, to start teaching. Also for funding my first ever Exhibition (Two Englishmen Abroad) in Karnobat, in the Autumn of 2009. To Rali and Lucho at The Bissera Gallery in Sozopol and Borovets, for being the first Gallery to accept my work in Bulgaria, and for your help and support since. To all my Bulgarian ‗virtual Artist friends‘ who I hope to meet one day. To Reporter Neli Zhelyazkova, for all of your help promoting my fledgling career. To Milka Xristova for her support and help, despite our joint reliance on ‗Google translate‘ to communicate. For the people of Cherkovo, Karnobat, and Bulgaria for your inspiration, acceptance and enthusiasm, and for accepting me as your adopted son. I truly feel at home in your beautiful Country, and amongst your beautiful people.

Martin Stephenson (aka Martin Stefanov) Watercolours for Beginners by Martin Stephenson www.artstevo.com