AMANDA BRETT WATERCOLOUR ARTIST
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PaintBox Tips​

PaintBox Tip #96 colour charging

13/4/2022

1 Comment

 
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Watercolour is often viewed as if it occupies its own little vacuum.

I remember a well-known artist friend collecting his paintings after a show:

“I’m here to collect my paintings”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m here to collect my paintings”

“Oh you mean your watercolours”

As if watercolours are not paintings and are separate, not even a category – not art, nor paintings – urk!

However, oddly enough, painted with a brush (in most cases!).

It’s a common weird nonsensical bit of claptrap. Mamma mia!!

Sometimes it feels like watercolour painters are set up for this. A popular art show I used to enter had a “professional” category for Oils/Acrylics. Does this make me not a professional? For a while I entered the professional category just to state my case and annoy them, really it’s just ignorance (mine or theirs??). I was particularly miffed to discover that my well-known watercolour artist Uncle started that show in 1954 (or thereabouts)!! Instead of being hailed the Queen (lol), my bags packed and cast into the snow!!

My point is, no matter your medium (pastel, music, poetry, blogging, sculpture, watercolour or oils) art is art and all need the same kind of thought and emotive language – darkness brings the light, grey accentuates chromatic colour, dominance emphasises an accent, indications are mysterious.

All art forms follow a set of guidelines (rules to be broken). Visual art is no different, we follow design principles created to help novice (and not-so novice) artists use pictorial or visual language to tell a story via visual impact.

In particular, today, I’m talking about colour charging. My 2 ideas for you today are:
  1. Colour marks, charging in analogous colour. This facilitates variety and interest – why did she do that?
  2. Brush marks, not our usual thing but why not? If the tone and temperature are right, why not add more variety and interest and use our brushes to mark the paper in a unique way.

The watercolour painter has to be patient (I’ll just leave now!) and focussed and wait for the water-to-paint-to-brush-to-paper ratio to be just right. Mostly novice watercolour painters are taught to “let it dry” which is the biggest mistake ever. I say this because this damp time is the fun-zone of watercolour and you are missing out my friend! Boo!!

Partly the issue lies in our process and planning and partly our lack of brush miles and then sometimes our courage flies out the window. But this FUN-ZONE is where the magic happens, what you and I have to do is be present and pay attention to what we’re doing and what’s happening on the paper. This level of focus is where you’ll learn the poetry of watercolour – choose your focal point and play with it.
 
How fun would it be to paint a lemon with a dab of orange, a bigger dab of a cooler yellow and a master stoke of cool pink for a shadow?

​ciao belli pitturi!!

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1 Comment

PaintBox Tip #​65 how to get fired up when you're not fired up

12/3/2022

8 Comments

 
Pictureode to country & western!!
edited from my original post 070115

It’s really hard to create a painting about a subject I have no interest in, having said that, I can make myself want to paint a particular subject simply by working through a research process and getting to know and appreciate the subject.

Imagine what it would be like for me to be told Country & Western theme ... ?**$#@!!**^??

Guess what? You can get fired up about any subject too!!

While I was still working in the corporate world but dabbling in watercolour painting, I was thrilled that my tutor would supply the subject matter. It meant one less thing for me to worry about, all I had to do was turn up every week and she'd have an amazing array of cool stuff she had pulled together for us. Barbara was a tremendous creative facilitator.

Another upside to this was that I learned to accept what was in front me, whether I liked it or not, this was no time to be fussing and complaining, I had 3 hours of painting time in front me, better get to it quick!

In writing this post I realise too, part of my inspiration for a subject came from our group discussion about the subject and everyone's ideas. Some of my best painting experiences have been painting in a group.

The more research I do about a particular subject the more passionate and determined I become to paint it. I fall in love with the subject ... it could be something as simple (?) as a brick wall or the way the light falls on a glass and the shapes and colours it creates. The intricacies of a subject become fascinating, although I don’t paint a lot of detail (this must have been written a while back!), I go through a process of studying the detail and deciding what I will leave out, what to include and which details describe my message best for that piece of art.

Typically my research might include a small sketch or two on site as well as a bigger more formed sketch I call a plein air painting. When I’m in my studio, if I’m painting from my imagination, I create lots of doodles and lots of composition thumbnails. I’m  reluctant to paint  scenes from a photo preferring to paint en plein air, not always possible and although I’m wary, I’m very happy with a lot of them.

For me, there is a driving force to create and always has been. Among other creative endeavours, I’ve always drawn and painted. It seems stronger now than ever and I think this may be, in part, because I work as a professional artist creating and painting most days - total immersion is good!

My brain is more switched on to looking for subject matter and planning my next work – everywhere I see a painting waiting to be painted. The more I look for subjects the sooner they appear - the more I paint the more ideas I get.

Happy painting!!
ciao amici!!

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Early Morning, via Vittorio Veneto is a case in point.

3 reasons not to paint this scene
  1. there's a lot of pink - yikes
  2. I couldn't draw it
  3. it had never occurred to me to paint this scene

My painting buddy said let's paint pink!! I was so frightened!! 

I didn't want to paint there - frightening!! but what made it worse? I couldn't draw the jolly thing!! I was so frustrated, I could not get my head around it at all!! So I drew straight onto my watercolour paper.

To compensate for my inaccurate drawing of the scene, I jimmied it around a little to suit. 5 years later I'm still so happy with the result, it's still one of my favourite paintings. I had to work really hard, there were so many barriers, sometimes a challenge is the way to move us out of a funk!

For me easy and comfortable are not always the best.
8 Comments

Secret #1 I love watching paint dry!

20/2/2022

0 Comments

 
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One of the reasons I love watercolour painting is the speed at which I can achieve a painting. If and when I'm clever, I can have a painting today! It took me a long time to get to this point - I've been painting watercolour close to 30 years - it's not an overnight process!!

A huge obstacle for watercolour newbies is allowing the watercolour to have it's way. There's a saying "before I paint, I'm in control, once I put that brush down the watercolour takes over". The secret is, until you get a really good feel for water balance in your brushes, paint and paper, you need to let go and stop trying to control the uncontrollable. Watercolour, as it should be painted, will be difficult for you.

Embrace "mistakes" and "accidents", runs and bleeds and allow the painting to speak to you and tell you what it wants. 
Have another read of my webpage "About Me" and note the last sentence - "I love watching paint dry!"

Stop fiddling and controlling and start watching what the paint does and note that where the water goes the paint will follow. You'll start to notice the really cool effects and passages - watercolours will paint themselves if we let them and they'll certainly ​do it much better than we can!

When we're painting watercolour it's time to stop and smell the roses! 

The scary secret is, you might not get the results you wanted or expected and you certainly might not know what to do next - that's the shock of it!! Use your artist's sense of composition, value structure and design to decide next steps - does it need more darks or lights? are the shapes correct? is it balanced and unified, etc etc.

Make a cuppa and watch the paint dry!!

ciao i miei belli amici!!
​Amanda

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Thinking # 39 Developing Your Style

17/1/2022

0 Comments

 
PictureGlamping Caviar & Ruffles
ny artists, beginners through to professionals are concerned with developing their style, their voice.

One of my personal key concerns is to develop a unique voice - there's a tremendous amount of copying happening, not only that, when groups of people paint together regularly they all seem to paint in the same way. I don't want to paint like the hoards - I want to paint like me, i treasure the unique and the work that it requires.

Many years ago, through my local art group I was fortunate to meet a highly skilled and creative artist whose style I quickly fell in love with. I attended his private tuition classes for many years and, although I don't paint exactly in this style, it is an obvious influence. My goal was to paint like me but also include an element of simplicity that is the hallmark of California watercolour.

I have had to become very selective about what I see and what I study. I have a level of eidetic memory which can sometimes get in my way - I have to be careful what I look at, I have to keep my end game in my sights at all times. To that end, I don't visit galleries nor do I look at very much art online, I have a few selected books in my artist library. I have no clue who other artists are, I don't care, I'm only interested in creating unique work of my own. Further, the more time I spend away from my easel doing other stuff is too much time away from my easel.

​But what if you don't know what you want to achieve? How do you find what you like? How do you find something that makes your heart leap?

Firstly, I recommend you only study "good" art. Go to Galleries, museums, study the masters, get recommendations from your tutor.

Study everything you possibly can, every genre, every style, every artistic movement. At some point, within your practice and your research, you will find something that really speaks to you. Learn to critique, what do you like, not like. Once you find it, put everything else aside and focus all your efforts onto your discovery.

A well known watercolour painter friend suggests that learning to paint is a 25 year apprenticeship, you might feel  you are behind the 8-ball . However you might also find that, if you are an older artist, you have clearer ideas about colours and styles, and know the subjects you love already, its really about how to communicate those ideas in a way that pleases you - practice, practice, practice!! repeat, repeat, repeat!!

what's your thinking on this?
what have you discovered about yourself?
 
 ciao 

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    PaintBox Tips, secrets, random thoughts,
    scribblings and doodlings on art, my life as an artist who teaches, travels, muses and paints!

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    There is no ONE WAY to paint a watercolour - Amanda Brett

    Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working - Pablo Picasso
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    There are no mistakes in watercolour, just some extra surprises!!
    Amanda Brett

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Amanda Brett - Watercolour Artist

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Quality Guarantee: All my watercolours are painted with only modern professional grade watercolour paints on Museum exhibition grade watercolour papers, they are extremely lightfast and will become a family heirloom and passed down to subsequent generations. ALL art of ANY medium should be hung away from direct sunlight. If​properly cared for, watercolour paintings will last as long, if not longer, than oil paintings. I only paint on 100% cotton rag paper, mostly Arches and Fabriano, and frame to conservation standard with acid free materials.
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  • Home
    • News
    • About Me
    • More About Me & Watercolour
    • What I See
  • Gallery Shop
    • SHOP New Original Paintings
    • Shop Limited Edition Prints
  • Tuition
    • PaintBox Tips featured posts >
      • PaintBox Tips
    • Video Lessons
    • Weekly Watercolour Classes >
      • Feedback & Photos
    • student's page
    • Lessons featured posts >
      • Lessons
    • Workshops for your Group
    • Watercolour Magic on Youtube
    • FAQs >
      • My faves and where to buy
      • Resources
  • Contact
  • Join My Insider's List
  • Workshop Lucca Italy June 2022
    • Plein Air Supplies