July 2023: Summer School – Portrait Art Workshop.
My last workshop of the year took place at Bedford House Community Association on 18th July. We were lucky to have the hall for the workshop, so we had plenty of space to spread out with easels, tables for materials and space to show work at the end of the day. Our model, Jelena, was great and she posed for 4 hours with short poses for drawing exercises, followed by a long pose for the paintings. Drawing exercises included: drawing with chalk onto grey paper, drawing with straight lines only and drawing with your opposite hand (ie. the hand you don’t usually draw with). These were fun and they served to loosen up the drawing styles that we normally go to and rely on, thereby leading students to experiment with different methods from the get-go. We had some surprising results , students said they enjoyed it, some saying that they could have had longer with each method to really get the most out of it.
Our painting exercise of the day was to work in monochrome first of all – we used ultramarine, white and black; the idea being to concentrate on proportions and composition and tone to create space, before going on to full colour. Most found that we didn’t have enough time to get near to a finished painting, but some said they learnt some new ways of working and could work on them at home. It was an enjoyable day of experiment in painting – it was great to have the extra space and a model for a long period of time. I hope we will have the chance to do it again.
June 2023: Homage to Cezanne 3: “Bananas in the Landscape”
I enjoyed painting this series and looking for more ways to reference an artist like Cezanne in the work.
After “Chicken Egg-cup” and “Cezanne Book”, this one, “Bananas in the Landscape” sets the still life directly into a landscape and questions what is real – still life or mountain – or neither!
Anyway, I like the composition, and perhaps that is the thing I really take from Cezanne – the diagonals that lead you around the picture, giving a sense of movement. There is a strong pull to the left by the incense-burner which emphasizes the diagonals, but the asymmetry is underpinned by the symmetry of the mountain, the cloth meeting the table in the foreground and the grapefruit in the bowl. I enjoy the strong colour too in Cezanne’s work, as well as the use of outline!
Anna.
Students really enjoyed this project as it was completely different to their normal medium – acrylic paint. We started with a typical subject – Bluebells or other landscape images – and, working from photos, students worked directly in collage, perhaps sketching out the image, or their chosen part of an image, to start with. The collage was built up gradually over a period of 3 or 4 weeks, taking coloured paper from magazines or from collected coloured papers, tissue etc. We referred to many artists who use collage – Kurt Schwitters, Hannah Hoch, , as well as Matisse, Picasso and Robert Rauschenberg. Mary Georgina Filmer was a little-known Victorian artist who used the scrap-book style of photomontage as her medium – we found her work surprising and fun! Artists of the past have used collage as a method of protest or to shock. Now collage is an accepted medium of it’s own.
Some remained faithful to the original as much as they could, using the torn or cut paper literally as their palette of colour.
Others really enjoyed how bits of photographs appeared in to the picture, from the imagery selected from magazines, adding a surreal element to the work – more photomontage then collage.
Some added paint to the final collage, to reach their desired result. Others played with the graphic or text elements found in magazines as well as the formal elements of colour, shape and tone, which added a “Pop” aspect to the work, or referred back to Kurt Schwitters, one of the first of the Modern movement to use collage.
It was amazing how everyone took a slightly different take on the project, finding their own way to a conclusion. You can see some work-in-progress images below too. Well done everyone!
May 2023: Homage to Cezanne 2: “Chicken Egg-cup”.
This is the final stage in the painting, Still Life: “Chicken Egg-cup” – aka “Bathers”. Below, you can see earlier stages: 1. Sketching out with warm and cool colours; 2. Adding “local” colour; 3. Further tone and contrast in all areas; 4. Realigning the hat and checking all ellipses; 5. Adding the bow-tie, spots on the egg-cup and bathers in the back-ground.
In the final image, here, I spent time getting the glass vase in the middle to look glassy with a warm green glaze; I worked on the folds of the cloth in the foreground; and shadows on the table-top.
I enjoyed all the different textures – how to hint at these without spending too long – but allowing certain elements to become as sharp as I felt they needed – Decisions!



April 2023: Homage to Cezanne 1: “Cezanne Book”.
In February this year, I went to see the Cezanne exhibition at Tate Modern. Following this, in all three art classes, Tuesday Art, Bedford House and Art with Anna, we were working on our own still life paintings, having looked at Cezanne’s work and discussed it in class. We also contrasted his work with that of Giorgio Morandi, whose work is currently on show at the Estorick Collection in Islington.
Here is a series of images showing the progress of my painting, “Cezanne Book”, aka “Skull”, which was started in class (Tuesday Art) and finished at home in the studio. They show the various stages that the painting went through on it’s way towards the finish. Sometimes the interim stages have qualities that are lost in the finished painting, which is why it is good to photograph the work whilst it is being made. As always, it is about when to stop and what is it that you are trying to achieve….?
1. Sketching out. 2. Blocking in. 3. Adding tone and shading.
4. The skull in the background emerges. 5. Colour in the skull and movement in the fabric.
6. The jaw of the skull is lost, but the apple stalk shows up against the Cezanne painting.
7. (Top image) The skull is recovered, ellipse is resolved and I finish there.
I am still working on the other two still life paintings in the series. AB.
April 2023: Images from the Portrait Art class this term:
Ralph by Penny, Lettice by Anna, Lettice by Anna, Hunter by Anna.
February 2023
Images from Portrait projects in all three of my classes at Wanstead House this term: Tuesday Art, Art with Anna and Portrait Art.
This display shows work from all classes, by students of all levels, showing the different ways that we have tackled the portrait. Working from photos is a good way to diagnose particular issues you have. You can employ techniques like upside-down drawing and squaring-up to help take your mind off the problem of getting a likeness, which is normally the desired outcome and also the thing that worries people most. Here you can use family photos or photos of celebrities which adds to the fun. You can’t use techniques like this when working from the live studio model. With the model, you have to just use your powers of observation, but the time limit imposed by the class situation can help you to focus on the problem in hand. Also with a live studio model, you have your own particular viewpoint and you learn that each and every person you draw has his/her own particular characteristics, which is the fascination of portrait art.
See if you can spot which works are done from photos and which are from the live studio model. AB.
To finish these images, I continued with the modelling, building up the contrast within each painting, adding further detail and refining the background colour and texture to suit each flower:
The background on 1.Daffodils was kept light and the added flecks of grey adds a feel of freshness or airiness to the image, plus the marks across the stems indicates how the stems would have been distorted in the glass vase.
In 2.Freesias, the background was graduated from light yellow ochre in the top right of the image to dark burnt umber in the bottom left, helping to give a warm and intimate atmosphere, but also a feeling of movement from left to right.
In 3.Lilies, the background is a dark contrast to the white lilies , creating drama, and the texture and pattern of the mark-making helps to give a feeling of dynamism to the whole image, as if it is whirling around in a vortex. Experiment with your painting techniques and see how they affect your images. This is also a good reason for working in series, with 2 or more images in a series – the subject can be treated slightly differently with each piece of work so something new is learned.
Focus on Flowers – oil on Canvas – Stage two.

6. As noted in Stage One, below, the next stage is to add significant colour, or “local” colour, ie, colour and tone that is not just tonal and due to light falling on the object, but due the the colour of the flower itself.
In the case of the Daffodil, the difference between the light outer petals and the intense yellow of the inner trumpet is shown.
With the Freesia, although I indicated colour in the first stage, the second stage intensifies the petal colours and adds the inner orange.
For the Lily, the central red is added after the overall shape of the flowers are formed with the pale greys and creams.
I find it helpful to set up the image with overall shapes using a range of tone in one, appropriate colour, THEN add specific colour, such as the intense flower colours. Somehow, having the image set up in general terms with tone helps you to get the strong colours right, ie. the right colour temperature (warm or cool), the right strength (intensity or saturation) and the right tone (light or dark).
7. Once the central colours are established, you can check the shapes and see if anything else needs changing.
When you are happy with these elements, including the composition, you can go on to finish off, adding any important details.
Please see the 3 images I have added above: Daff2, Freesia2 and Lily1.
I hope to add the finished images in due course,
Anna B.
Focus on Flowers – oil on Canvas – stage one.
This project is for putting into practise what we have learnt this term about composition – about arranging the elements of your painting for a certain effect and thinking about the effect you are after. It is also about practising the use of oil paint and building the painting in stages.
1. Set up your flowers for painting – these may be fresh flowers or artificial ones. Think about whether you are looking straight at them from the side, or from above – it’s about getting a good view of the actual blooms. I had to put my flowers on a chair so that I could look closer at them from above.
2. Prepare your canvas or paper by painting all over with one colour. This may be to do with the actual colour behind the flowers on the table or floor, or an imagined colour that complements the flowers in some way. Canvas or canvas paper can be painted with acrylic paint before using oils on top for the painting. I have used Ultramarine plus white for the daffodils – giving the impression of sky; I have used yellow ochre, softened with ultramarine blue for the red freesias – this is a good contrast – the red and a gold-ish colour. So the daffodils will have a cool and fresh look and the freesias, warm and more closed in.
3. The first stage of painting needs a choice of colour that doesn’t stand out too much from the background, as you set out the composition of the flowers in a loose and free way – so for the daffs, I chose a pale yellow/green/grey which suggest the shadow colour of the outer petals, mixed from lemon yellow plus a small amount of Ultramarine and red. So it is tending towards grey/green. For the freesias, a pale pink from Alizarin Crimson plus white and a tiny bit of lemon yellow.
These light tones were used to sketch out freehand with a thin brush the overall spacing of the flowers. The main ones were put in first, followed by the the smaller blooms plus any stalks.
At this stage we are shifting things around until we are happy with the overall composition. I had to move the first daffodil to make room for the second one. Any rough lines can be hidden later with more background colour.
4. The second stage is to mix up a darker tone of the colour you have just used, and start to look for the darker areas of the flowers, so shadows on the petals, darker parts inside the flowers. This will begin to show the 3D effect of the flower in space. But try not to hide all of the background colour when painting the petals – it’s the combination of the two, foreground and background, that will bring energy to your work.
5. The next thing is to start to add any significant colour. This will be shown in the next round of photos. The lily from last Thursday had a strong Crimson centre – watch this space!
Anna B.
January 2022.
This year, I have had the pleasure of taking over the historic Thursday Afternoon Portrait class at Wanstead House…. in recent years run by Eamon Everall but formerly dating back to the post-war era of Walter Spradbury and his contemporaries, Vivian Bewick and Hayden Mackay. There is a very interesting self-portrait by Hayden Mackay in the entrance hall of Wanstead House which has been there as long as I have worked there (20 years plus), probably much longer. It is painted in oils, allegedly using the Zorn Palette, a combination of colours devised by the Swedish artist, Anders Zorn. More on this later.
The class is still continuing with the regular challenge of drawing or painting from a live, studio model, in a beautiful first floor studio with natural light.
Here is my information leaflet – back soon with images!
Anna B.
Bedford House:
As from 15th September, my Wednesday afternoon class at Bedford House Community Association will be starting in person – I am looking forward to seeing everybody there – please make sure you have paid your fees to ensure the class can start as planned!
This year at Bedford House, I will also be running the Wednesday morning class, a class aimed at beginners which covers drawing and painting in acrylics plus mixed media including pastels. From Wed 8th September. This course is now full.
For further details, please contact Bedford House on 020 8504 6668.
Art with Anna:
On Thursday 16th September, Art with Anna starts in person at Wanstead House, for the Autumn Term. This is a mixed ability class which covers drawing, painting in acrylics and watercolours, and enjoys lively debate about art and culture.
Please contact Anna for further details on 07954 790420.
Redbridge Institute of Adult Education:
Anna’s Tuesday art class for RIAE starts in person at Wanstead House Community Association on Tuesday 5th October.
This course is now full, but you can enrol for the January term by contacting Redbridge Institute of Adult Education by phone on 0208 550 2398, or via their website.
We do mainly watercolours in the Summer Term – here’s one for starters – “The Golfer” – where we are learning about the “wet-in-wet” technique which is good for creating an atmosphere! Back soon, Anna.
15th April 2021 Update:
“Robin” by Augustus John.
When I was at school, one of the first portraits I painted was a copy of “Robin” by Augustus John. It brings back some lovely memories of learning to paint as I had some great teachers. I thought in my class this term I would give students the chance to make a transcription of this piece, or any other portrait of their choice, whilst doing my own copy at the same time.
Here is some information from the Tate Gallery about the painting, “Robin”, by Augustus John:
Robin was the third son of Augustus John and his wife Ida; he was eight when this portrait was painted. John often used his family as models, particularly for his less conventional work. In this intimate study, the boy’s long tousled hair suggests both freedom and ambiguity of gender. The close-up perspective also disturbs the boundaries of distance usually maintained in portraiture.
Robin’s consciousness of being scrutinised by his father could be interpreted as betraying resentment or unease. The two had a difficult relationship. Robin’s silences often infuriated John, who declared his son ‘hardly utters a word and radiates hostility’. Gallery label, August 2004
In class, we followed some notes by John in which he describes how to paint a portrait, (Wikipaedia):
“Make a puddle of paint on your palette consisting of the predominant colour of your model’s face and ranging from dark to light. Having sketched the features, being most careful of the proportions, apply a skin of paint from your preparation, only varying the mixture with enough red for the lips and cheeks and grey for the eyeballs. The latter will need touches of white and probably some blue, black, brown, or green. If you stick to your puddle (assuming that it was correctly prepared), your portrait should be finished in an hour or so, and be ready for obliteration before the paint dries, when you start afresh.”
I tried to follow this method by:
1. Starting with drawing the face in pencil, then mixing the main, light facial colour and working over the whole face – using the 3 primaries and white, I mixed a very light cream colour for this.
2. Second, I mixed the middle, yellow ochre colour which I worked into the shadow areas of the face and the background as well as some of the hair.
3. Third, I used a dark, almost burnt umber colour to bring in the darks of the eyes, nostrils and mouth. This also started to work into the hair and framing the face. The painting at this stage is shown on the left.
4. I added the red of the lips plus a few other red spots around the face, all the time looking and observing what colour should come next.
5. Next I added the blue grey of the eyes, to make them recede into the eye sockets.
6. The next thing to do was to work a bit more into the skin colour – so I mixed a slightly darker skin tone to help with modelling the face and then started describing more detail such as the skin around the eyes, the nose and the chin. It really is shaping the form and the surface of the face.
7. The last thing to mention is the darkness and the highlights of the eyes. To finish off, I just worked around the whole painting, building up the darks, modelling the face, and enhancing the head shape in space with the shadows and colours of the background. By this time, you will know what else needs doing, so just follow your intuition.
8. It’s important not to overdo it – to capture the character of the young boy, it’s important to keep the brushstrokes fresh and not fiddly. Remember, it is your impression of the painting, not a slavish copy. Well done for getting this far! Happy Sketching! Anna.
Over the last few weeks, we have been looking at the art of Jacob Van Ruisdael, Dutch 17th Century painter who broke with tradition to paint with great energy and expression. Constable is said to have admired his work. Here is one of his paintings, “View of Haarlem with the Bleaching Grounds”,1670-75, in the Maurithuis, The Hague, followed by my sketch in pastels. I have also added some notes about his life and about The Protestant Rebellion which influenced the work of many artists around this time.
Trying the image in a different medium is good practice, pushing pastels, and your skills, to the limit, and clarifying the qualities that are specific to that medium.
Jacob Van Ruisdael 1629-1682
The Dutch School of Landscape Painting 17th Century.
Ruisdael was born into a family of painters and craftsmen; his father was a frame-maker and minor painter. Living in Haarlem, just outside Amsterdam, near the coast, he was trained by his uncle Salomon Ruysdael – a successful landscape painter of the early 17th century, whose work was calm and descriptive, as work of this earlier part of the period tended to be – detailing the countryside with features such as cottages and windmills, displaying a pride in their own country. This new genre of painting, landscape, became instantly successful around this time. Other artists include Van der Velde and Jan Van Goyen.
Haarlem was a thriving artistic and industrial centre – prosperous due to the linen-bleaching trade – sounds unhealthy, but “View of Haarlem with Bleaching Grounds”, by Ruisdael, shows how the linen used to be soaked in the spring waters and stretched out to bleach in the sun.
Artists needed to belong to the Haarlem Guild of St Luke to work as a painter in the town and Ruisdael’s first signed and dated work was produced at this time, when he was aged 18, 1648.
Ruisdael junior soon moved to Amsterdam to further his career. He produced around 700 works in his lifetime and achieved good prices for his work till the end of his life. He was buried in St Bavos, a Gothic church in Haarlem, which also features in a few of his paintings. A pupil and friend of his, Meindart Hobbema, was also a notable artist and produced “The Avenue at Middleharnis” – considered one of the most memorable landscapes of all time…?
Why is Ruisdael such a noteworthy artist? He used subjects that were different from the generation before him. Combined with the familiar scenery around him, he also collected scenes of rocky outcrops, rolling hills and waterfalls from his travels in the border regions of Holland inland. He was keen to travel, where his predecessors were not. He put these images together into made-up compositions in which the atmosphere was darker, more brooding than his predecessors and the weather was volatile with clouds seeming to move fast across the sky. The word “Picturesque” comes from this idea where ordinary scenes are dramatized for effect. So, this was a break from the conventions of the era, rather than simply observing local scenes, called “Topographical”.
His work was often melancholy, using dark colours and strong contrasting tones – but it was also more painterly and exuberant and as such, is seen as a forerunner of the Romantic movement, like artists such as Constable and Turner, as well as Gainsborough in England. Indeed, Constable (1776-1837) was known to have admired Ruisdael’s work. Constable said of him: “these solemn days, peculiar to his country and ours, when…large rolling clouds scarcely permit a ray of sunlight to break the shades of the forest – with these effects, he enveloped the most ordinary scenes with grandeur”.
January 2021
The Dutch Republic, 17th Century.
The 17th Century was a golden Age for Holland and the surrounding countries – The Netherlands – a period of great wealth and achievement.
1568 – “The United Provinces” – with the “Union of Utrecht”, the 7 northern provinces of the Netherlands began to see themselves as a federal republic – Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Gelderland, Overijssel, Friesland and Groningen.
The Republic and William of Orange revolted against Phillip II of Spain over taxes, persecutions of Protestants, centralisation of power within Spain.
1579 – They formed an alliance against Spain.
1582 – They gained independence – today they make up The Netherlands, Belgium, and Holland.
1609 – Truce – Released from control of Spanish Rule.
The Protestant Republic was more tolerant of different religions and ideas than the Spanish rule which they saw as undemocratic, untransparent and lacking in freedom. It seemed to them that for the Roman Catholic Church, waiting for the next world was all that mattered. The Protestants overturned these ideas. This world, the here and now, were what was important. Each person’s experience was as important as the next. This led to a new confidence, and the observation and study of the real world through science and the arts. Freedom of thought was key, and this was the Protestant revolution.
In the arts in 17th Century, genre painting developed many different themes – Vermeer: interiors with figures; Ruisdael: landscapes. Rembrandt was one artist who worked in many different genres. Still life, flowers, interiors, and townscapes all found their place in an enormous market among the growing middle classes for small-medium sized art that you could hang in your home.
Released from Spanish Rule, Dutch merchants made Amsterdam the commercial hub of Europe. The achievements of the Dutch Republic in 100 years from 1609 spanned industrial, intellectual, scientific, cartographic, engineering. Dutch sailors travelled all around the world; Abel Tasman, was looking for a new route to the Spanish Colonies when he discovered Tasmania and New Zealand.
Although the state was small (around 1.5m people), it controlled a worldwide network of seafaring trade routes. The Dutch East India Co. and the Dutch West India Co. formed the Dutch colonial empire. Income from this trade allowed the Republic to compete against much larger countries. Huge fleets of ships, in the region of 2000 in total, more than in France and England combined. From 1568, major conflicts were fought with Spain and other European countries, which became the 80 years war.
1648 – The Treaty of Munster – The Independence of The Netherlands was fully recognised. Spain and the Dutch Netherlands made peace and 80 years of war finally ended. In England at this time, Cromwell took over from King Charles I. In this year, Ruisdael joined the Guild of St Luke, and his career, along with many others’, began in earnest.
Anna Bisset January 2021.
Recent studies in class included some discussion about the idea of “Chiaroscura” looking at Caravaggio and Artemesia Gentilleschi.
In class today, I briefly talked about these paintings by Chardin – 1. “The School Mistress” 1736 (National gallery) and 2. “Still Life with Silver Cup”, 1768 (Louvre).
Chardin (1699-1779) was a French, 18th century artist, contemporary of Boucher and Fragonard who were know for their florid, Rococo style of painting – the height of fashion at the time. Chardin achieved fame early in his life with his quiet, homely still lifes which were painted simply and directly with well-balanced compositions. Their small size and simple subject matter followed the style of the Dutch Golden era, which were very popular in France at the time, so his work appealed to both Bourgeoisie and Royalty alike. Chardin’s father was a carpenter, so Chardin was educated in practical skills, but he showed an early talent for painting and soon enrolled in the Guild of St Luke as a Master Painter. Later, when friends suggested he should become more ambitious, he started to paint figures and domestic scenes. His figure paintings are reminiscent of Vermeer; the poses and unspoken exchanges between the figures making them so poignant and atmospheric. Figure compositions were considered a step up from still life, and might allow him entry to the Paris Academy. He was eventually accepted and became a councillor of the Academy in 1755, but he never became Rector or Professor as these posts were reserved for History painters.
Hi everyone,
November Update 2020.
Following the recent guidelines for National Lockdown from 4th November 2020, Art with Anna Art-class will be run online until Lockdown is lifted on 2nd December.
September Update 2020.
In spite of the on-going Covid situation, classes at Wanstead House and Buckhurst Hill Community Association will be continuing, albeit with the relevant restrictions in place. As they are both centres where educational courses take place, we are delighted to advise that courses which are run by a tutor in a Covid-safe centre, such as WHCA and BHCA are able to continue. Each centre has their own set of restrictions and students are informed of these when they enrol. Art with Anna, therefore, has been running at Wanstead House this term and is set to continue for the foreseeable future. If you would like further information about Art with Anna at Wanstead House, please email Anna via the contact page on this website and she will send you further information. Thank you.
Watercolour Workshop at Bedford House Community Association
For 3 weeks in August, I ran a short course called
“Painting Flowers in Watercolours” –
With all the Covid restrictions it’s been difficult, but, it’s been amazing how everyone has adapted to the situation! Firstly, Bedford House set up their building to make it Covid-19 proof – as Covid-19 proof as you can be, with all the regular guidance for everybody – not an easy task! Secondly, they have set up a Summer School programme, covering a range of arts and leisure courses in Bedford House for the month of August. This has been great for tutors like me, who have been a bit nervous about getting back into teaching face-to-face in the current situation – so I now feel prepared to start my regular classes in September. Thirdly, I have been lucky enough to have a group of students who have tackled “Flowers in Watercolours” with interest and enthusiasm – they have worked beautifully together as a group and they have been a pleasure to teach! Some have been painting for a while, some were complete beginners, but all were focussed on watercolours.
A few points of interest: in the hot weather for the first two weeks, Bedford House put up large gazebos in the garden and the classes were taken outside, which was delightful and made the heat much more bearable as there was a lovely breeze! In the last week, we were inside, but we used two class-rooms to accommodate the 10 students in a socially-distanced way. Thirdly, as a tutor, I continued to practice my techy skills producing hand-outs for students as well as two new videos to show them the tricky task of drawing and painting roses. Below you will see some photos of the Roses and Japanese Anemones we were painting and the links for the videos are here too – my one regret is that I didn’t take any photos of the group – but I will hopefully see them again at Bedford House in the near future – some students signed up for my weekly class at Bedford House! Thanks so much to all the students for coming along and thank you to Bedford House!
For the Bedford House website, go to: www.bedfordhouse.org.uk
For my short videos on Watercolours, go to:
Anna’s Art Class Online:
Class No. 8 “Boat Sunset with Glazes”
This is an exercise to see if you can get the hang of using Glazes in watercolours.
A Glaze is a technique with the brush where you lay an area of colour over other colours without disturbing the first colour.
If you look at this image, you will see that the sails in grey are laid over the top of the sunset background. You can see, especially in the larger sail, the background sunset changing colour through the sail This shows that the sunset colours have not been disturbed by the second wash of colour.
The other point to note is that the whole of the sail area is similar in tone all over. That is because the whole of each sail was painted in one go.
ie. the whole shape was completed before any of that shape started to dry. This is the essence of a Glaze.
The rest of the details, ie. the details of the boats, the people and the foreground (you may spot some dry-brush here) were painted after the large sail areas, and mainly in the “Sketching with the Brush” method. You would need to leave the Sails to dry before doing this.
NB I have used a blue-grey for the sails rather than the orange in the photo, but you can use the orange or any other colour if you like.
Have a go and see if you can build up the image using the skills you have learnt this term.
Felix Scribo
Anna’s Art Class online:
Class No.7 “Pen and Watercolour”
Anna’s Art Class online:
Class No.7 “Pen and Watercolour”
Having done a fair bit of watercolours over the last few weeks, I’d like you to have the chance to try pen with watercolours, which offers an alternative and sometimes quicker way to get a finished product.
You can try this with your small sketchbook or with a small piece of watercolour paper, on the basis that you may be outside sketching or on holiday (we wish!) and you want to travel light.
The images below were done with Faber Castell PITT artist pen, followed by watercolours, in an ordinary cartridge paper sketchbook.
You will need:
A drawing pen; this could be a Rotring pen, a dip-pen, or a fibre-tipped art pen. If not you can try using any black ball-point gel-pen, a black fibre-tipped pen or biro – just try it out with water to see if the ink is permanent, ie, if you go over the dry drawn line with a wet brush, it stays in place and doesn’t “bleed”. As I don’t have any art pens at the moment, I am going to try using an ordinary black biro.
Your regular watercolours, or even better, a small travelling set of watercolours in “pans” rather than tubes.
Water and brushes as usual.
Any watercolour paper would be best, but if not available, use cartridge paper.
You can use any subject you have to hand, from life or from a photo, just to try the method.
1. Lightly sketch out your image onto the watercolour paper in pen.
2. When you are sure the ink is dry, start to add your first layer of watercolours. You could try the wet-in-wet technique to start with, as with the “Footpath” project, to get the main light colours down first.
3. After that, you can strengthen the sketch with the “Sketching with the Brush” method outlined earlier in the term.
4. Build up the tones with some “Stippling”, as with the trees.
Really, it’s a chance to put into practice all you have learnt in watercolours, but with the back-up of pen-work so that you can more easily see where you are going. You may be able to use the pen to add detail that would normally be tricky with watercolours alone.
Small exercises or sketches are best to start with – I am going to try a simple sunset on a small scale, hopefully to send to Wanstead House. See below the Sunset image I am going to use, as well as two pen and watercolour images I did last year. These took quite a long time, the Sunset shouldn’t take so long, as it is much simpler.
Happy sketching, Anna.
Lockdown Art Class online:
28th April 2020. Class No.5 “Fluffy Clouds in Watercolour”
So far we have been working onto dry paper with a straight-forward sketching technique.
Here, you will see the next stage in creating a watercolour painting: creating the back-ground sky, covering the whole paper, onto which you can add the fore-ground of your choice.
Here, you will find out how to create a blue sky with white, fluffy clouds, a useful back-drop for any landscape painting.
It is also very important to appreciate the difference between working on wet paper and working on dry paper. “Wet-in-wet”, where the paper is wet before you add the colour, enables the artist to add colour without the crisp edges that you get when working on dry paper – the edges will be soft and the colour will be fluid until the paint starts to “set” into the paper.
Please use the following link to watch the video “Fluffy Clouds”: https://vimeo.com/414722932
Then you can use your own photo of fluffy clouds and produce the image using the wet-in-wet technique (or print out the photo attached here).
Leave the painting to dry before adding the foreground of your choice, going back to the sketching technique used last week.
Lockdown Art Class online:
21st April 2020. Class No.4: “Sketching with the Brush: Bird Bath”
An exercise in sketching in watercolours, you can watch my next demonstration in Vimeo, on this link: https://vimeo.com/412275892
As last week, try sketching something in and around your house and/or garden. See if you can spot the following techniques or activities in the demo:
Sketching with the Brush;
Dry Brush (brush on the side or dragged);
Negative Painting/Negative Spaces;
Stippling (brush vertical);
Glazes (for shadows);
Making changes to your “drawing”;
Lifting out “puddles”;
Use of “Local Colour”, rather than just the limited greys.
Hope you enjoy it, Anna.
Lockdown Art Class online: 7th April 2020.
Class No. 3: “Sketching with the Brush: Fish-bowl”
One way into working in watercolours is to just pick up a brush and start using it AS IF IT IS A PENCIL – ie. try not to think about it being a brush, just think as though you were going to do a normal pencil sketch. You can watch a video of a short sketch I did in the garden the other day – I used neutral colours, plus a green for the planting – so virtually no colour to think about – go to the link below.
Whilst you are watching it, try and look out for the following techniques; some will be more obvious than others.
Sketching with the brush
Ellipses
Stippling (brush vertical)
Drybrush (brush horizontal or dragged)
Shadows (glazing)
Paper dams (gaps of dry paper between brush strokes)
Hard edges v. soft edges
Negative painting or negative shapes.
Pick a small area in your house or garden and see if you can do a sketch including some of the techniques above. Just keep practising.
Lockdown: Anna’s Art Class online.
30th March 2020 Lesson 2: “Through the Window”
Here is a painting by Henri Matisse, “Open Window”, 1918 which he made when he was in Nice. The size is 60 x 47 cm. Beside it is a sketch I made from my back door. You may not have a lovely sea view at the moment, but you might have a garden view you would like to draw or you might have an interesting alternative view, such as the view down the street, or a view onto other buildings. Whatever you can see from your window, it will be your own unique view and it would be great if you can sketch it in pencil, or charcoal if you prefer, as part of your Daily Sketch project.
Alternatively: If you really are not inspired by the real world as it is at the moment, try taking Matisse’s painting, copying the window part and then putting in a view of your own choice – from another image or from your imagination.
Enjoy your work!
Anna.
Lockdown: Anna’s Art Class online.
23rd March 2020 Lesson 1: “A Cup of Tea”
Hi Everyone,
next time you have a cup of tea or coffee, when you have finished it, do a drawing of it, wherever it is.
This can be in biro, in your small sketch-book.
This will give you practice in cross-hatching, ellipses, perspective and, if the mug/cup has pattern on it, surface pattern.
By using biro or any other kind of pen, you will also be practising drawing without rubbing out, which is good experience: I usually start light, and then when I am sure of positioning etc. I begin to work more heavily, adding shading and further detail. See my example above.
When you have finished, if you can photograph it and upload it to your facebook page, then tag me and I’ll have a look.
Happy Sketching,
Felix Scribo.