January paintings

The year is already twenty days old, where does the time go? I have been busy here at the studio, working on a commission for a client which I’ll show you in another post. In between times, I’ve had visits from several artists who like to come here for tuition from time to time, so I thought I’d show you what we have been doing.

So, here are a couple of watercolours which I did as demonstrations for some students earlier this week.

Tree landscape in the style of Edward Seago
A sky and a tree, what more does the landscape artist need! This is in the style of the East Anglian master Edward Seago.
Buttermere painting
A view of Buttermere, in the style of William Heaton-Cooper, a well known Lake District artist of the 20th Century
You will see that they both use a very limited palette of colours, which I hope gives them a nice feeling of harmony and atmosphere. Never worry about making your colours too true to life, try and keep things simple because it makes for a more effective painting.

Both these works are based on paintings by well known artists of the 20th Century. You can learn a great deal from studying the masters, but you must never copy their work and pass it off as your own. Make sure that you add “after Edward Seago” or whoever to the title, so that everyone knows where the original composition came from.

A New Year a new painting

Happy New Year everybody! I thought I’d kick off 2014 by showing you a scene of Ely Cathedral which I painted recently with my two students who come to the studio on occasional Saturdays, Chris and Pat. We spend a few hours sploshing in watercolour about once a month and they are both doing really well.

Ely Cathedral in Springtime
Ely Cathedral in Springtime. Watercolour 14 x 10 ins.
If you would like to come to my Dersingham studio and have some tuition with me, then do get in touch. I have a small group on occasional Tuesdays, which is a “drop in and out of” group, and I also have groups of friends who come, as well as one-to-one students. There’s more information about both group and one-to-one tuition on my website Learnwatercolour.com There’s a link to the relevant page here.

It’s worth mentioning that I can also travel to you for art tuition, if that’s more convenient. Again I can tutor one-to-one, small or large groups, or give demonstrations and workshops for art societies. Do get in touch to talk about your requirements. My details are all on the Contact page of this blog.