Rob Candy Watercolour Demonstration 17th February 2024
Rob was keen to come back, two years after his previous visit to Whitehorse Arts. Again, he came early to set up his elaborate equipment and samples of his work. Studios 7 & 8 had two cameras to link. He needed a laptop for Power Point. There was more technology than a Taylor Swift concert to be brought to heel.
He began with a slide show, advocating on-site sketching, showing the satisfactions of en plein aire. It was a great record of his sketching around the world. He said, “Do a quick sketch and move along”.
Cornwall in south-west England was to be his subject
today. So he described the environment before focusing down to one scene. He had slides of artists from the Newlyn social realism school of art.
He made general points about his water-colour process; identify your whites, then wash around them with midtones, then put in the final details with darks and colours. Add your construction lines to show perspective. His materials included Saunders 300gsm paper, a 2B pencil. A good brush is Escoda, Perla range. It has a good point, once it starts dancing, you just have to hang on to it.
Asked how to draw boats, he said, “Draw the stern.
Where is the bow? Put a dot there and hook them together. Be able to draw a standard boat to use in any
sea-scape. Also a cow, a sheep, a person and a car, even have a cut-out of each”.
The drawing done, he described his palette. It has blues down the left side, including cerulean blue for granulation, reds along the top and earth colours down
the right side to yellow. The square in the middle is your mixing pool.
Begin painting. Wet the area, but not the whites. Load
the brush and, from the top, let the bead roll down , not
touching the whites.
With the first stage, the wash, done, it was back to Power Point and Cornwall’s 18th century art school.
He showed great enthusiasm for the social realism art of Cornwall, showing slides of many great artists who have painted there. (It was also a smart trick to allow his wash to dry).
The third stage was putting in the darks. A good dark
is Prussian blue plus alizarin . Or ultramarine blue plus
burnt sienna. He did the main boat, then the light-house. In any area, change the colour as you go. His rule was, in the background, have cool colours and soft edges, and in the foreground have many warm colours and hard-edged details. He added other boats and red colour to draw the eye to the centre of the picture.
So the major players were in. Now to tie it up with a bit
of detail and construction lines – dark against light. He tied the main boat in with a loop of ground-water. He was very conscious of not letting the eye escape out the sides. He made the point of never allowing a shape to go out of the painting on a down-ward angle.
There were quotes on Power Point from famous watercolourists – Harold Herberts, Hans Heysen, Arther Streeton and recently deceased Robert Wade.
Our man had so much to teach. He was busting with enthusiasm. It was a great demonstration.
Colin Browne
