Julian Bruere Demonstration, Saturday 20th June 2015 Watercolour Landscapes
Julian is advancing in reputation on the master Melbourne watercolourists at a great rate and, although he defers to Bob Wade,
Joseph Zbutnik, Greg Allen and co, his credits are building to
challenge them. He is up there, as his “Snow gums” and maritime
paintings show. Both modest and brash at the same time, his
demonstration was peppered with funny asides and humorous oneliners,
often at his own expense.
Today it was a landscape, “Approaches to
Yea”, from a photo. It was not the most scenic photo you have seen,
rather lacking in colour or figure or main feature, but his concern was
to teach us about composition, texture and perception of depth, so it
did the job. His first advice to novices was “paint bigger”, and he
also had a surprising secret weapon to show us .. breadcrumbs.
There
was a minimum of drawing on his vertical sheet; most of his drawing was
done with the brush. It scribbled frenetically in all directions, held
at full length but the cobalt blue wash soon produced a mass of gumtrees on a white background. No sky first this time.
He wanted to
establish the mist first before coming back later with stronger darks
for the more forward trees.
Then he went with raw umber plus purple
to make the foreground. It was quite wet and here came the secret
weapon. He sprinkled breadcrumbs into it. Not salt or sugar, but
breadcrumbs.
For the rest of the day they remained soft and wet and
able to be scratched or rubbed giving a texture that suggested stubbly
paddocks. Like other expert watercolourists he allowed some drying time
by pausing to answer questions or just talk. They build this into
their demo and usually the audience doesn’t notice. Very sneaky. But
the lesson is that timing is of the essence in this medium. You get
‘cauliflowers’ if you get it wrong, although Julian advised that these
are often a boon and not to be cleaned up. He is an intuitive artist
accepting the accidental effect and making a positive out of a
negative. Are we too controlling, do we have a pre-conception of what
will be right? Julian seems not to have. Maybe this is the recipe
for being loose not tight.
Talking about his palette he said he had his favourite colours, his friends, which were close to the centre, and
others on the outer which were necessary at times. But his favourite
colour was ‘grunge’, a mixture of the bits and pieces left on the
palette from earlier mixing. ‘Killed colour’. It makes an interesting
grey.
Talking about composition he referred to the classical
painters and their allegiance to diagonals and thirds. Also, like the
Walt Disney cartoon makers he will highlight the lighter focal areas by
darkening the surrounds.
He is intuitive in that he will paint a bit,
loosely, step back and see an area he likes, then step up and
accentuate it. So the composition is not set in concrete (or
breadcrumbs) right from the start. He is happy to stop painting and
pencil in a new guideline as it occurs to him. Any pencil has to be
very sharp.
To now it has been mainly preparing a background of
misty trees and scrabbly foreground. With darker contrasting grunge he
scribbled in the foreground trees. Holes were needed to let the birds
through. If necessary he would take a hog hair oil brush and push colour away, or a thin rigger to line in twiggy bits. You can get a
light line for a branch by allowing clean water to run down the
vertical board and wash out some colour. Lots of the tricks of the
trade.
Thank you Julian for sharing your secrets.
Report by Colin Browne