On the 17th of August, WAA had a fascinating demo. by experienced teacher, demonstrator and artist,
Maxine Wade. She decided to show us the possibilities of water-colour and mixed media, in particular, water-soluble inks, fountain pen ink, gouache and water-colour sticks.
Although she had in mind a certain idea of where she would go, she had a very open approach, trying to show us that there are innumerable ways to go with the water-soluble materials she had.

Her board was a huge piece of 600gsm Arches watercolour paper, taped down but not soaked or stretched, an expensive sacrifice for the WAA demo. 600gsm v. the usual 300gsm and double the normal size! I hoped that she would produce something good to justify it. However, her free and easy persona was also a worry. I can see now that she was trying to get us to be loose, not tight, ready to embrace accidental effects and explore the many things that can happen when you apply water to these media.
She started by showing lots of her previous work that could be called “still life”, anything in-animate and static such as statues, machinery, tractors, puppets, fruit. Lemons are to be the subject today.
The big sheet was lying flat and she wet it all over with a broad brush. Then she applied a quin gold wash all over. When dry, half a dozen lemons were outlined with black. The black was Quink fountain-pen ink and maybe charcoal or pastel. It didn’t seem to matter as long as it was a black loose mark. A bit of finger-painting . Her painting was vigorous and physical with broad, loose strokes, elbow and shoulder movement. In the lemons, she used gamboge and orange in the shadows. It was quite wet and, if not, she sprayed it. She said , “I like wet paint that moves”.