Archive for category Subject: Various
Light and Movement in Watercolour || Jake Winkle
Posted by henry in Author: Jake Winkle, Medium: Watercolour, Publisher: Batsford, Subject: Techniques, Subject: Various on March 30, 2012
Jake Winkle’s paintings are all about colour. These can frequently be surprising as, for example, in the front cover image of the boxing hares, where reds, blues and greens are used to give shade and depth as well as to impart vitality and movement.
It takes a little practice to get your eye accustomed to his style, which at first sight appears very loose. Well, it is very loose, but there’s more detail in there than you first realise and you’ll eventually begin to appreciate the way in which carefully placed and graduated blocks and splashes of colour are used to define shape and depth. The trick is in the juxtaposition of advancing and receding hues that give an almost 3-dimensional appearance. Look again at those hares: if they were done any other way, they’d be a magnificent image, but they’d be static and flat.
Not all Jake’s work is quite as avant-garde as this, but the sense of colour is always there, even if it’s sometimes more subtle, as in his more tranquil landscapes as well as interiors and flowers. The book is mostly about how Jake paints, although there are four demonstrations included so that you can have a go at a guided attempt at his style for yourself – and I’d certainly recommend that you try this.
This is without doubt a challenging book, but it’s also a rewarding one. As ever with a highly individualistic style, you wouldn’t want to copy it completely, but it’s certainly worth considering the way Jake uses colour and seeing if you can’t incorporate at least a few of his ideas.
Splash 12 – celebrating artistic vision || ed. Rachel Rubin Wolf
Posted by henry in Author: Rachel Rubin Wolf, Medium: Watercolour, Publisher: David & Charles, Publisher: North Light, Series: Splash, Subject: Various on July 12, 2011
This is one of those books that North Light put out once in a while, ostensibly to showcase new talent but which, being a cynic, I suspect of being a way to re-use material they already own the rights to.
As a concept, it’s a good idea because you get to see what current trends are and also to have a look at the work of a wide range of (American) artists you wouldn’t necessarily be buying books by. It’s also not subject specific, so you get landscapes, people, buildings, animals, townscapes. Each picture has a caption which very briefly explains it and there’s also a selection of short quotes, sometimes by the artist, sometimes by a critic and sometimes by someone completely irrelevant. It’s a bit like a lucky dip and definitely has a whiff of sawdust about it, but whether that’s from the tombola or the hasty construction, I’m not quite sure.
From all of which, you can probably gather that I’m not going to recommend that you buy it. However, I am going to suggest that you track down a copy in your local library, because you’re pretty much guaranteed to find at least one interesting painting here and maybe get a few ideas you didn’t even know you were looking for, into the bargain. That’s assuming you still have a local library. With the demise of the independent bookshop and the marketing of books as commodities, browsing serendipitously is a thing of the past. Go into any bookshop you can find and you’ll be pretty much guaranteed to see the same old stuff, even on the back shelves.
Yes, I know you can go online and find anything but, when you can see it all, you can actually see nothing. The point of the sidestreet bookshop was that the stock reflected the owner’s preoccupations and there’d always be something you hadn’t even considered and the surprise of the new guaranteed a sale. Back in the days when I ran an architectural bookshop, one of my favourite customers used that phrase to me, “surprise the reader” – show them something they, as an expert, didn’t know about. It’s a tall order for a non-specialist, but it made the research fun, and it worked too.
Now we’re killing off libraries as well and they were the last bastion of quiet browsing over random subjects. We only care about information, not knowledge, and it’s not something you can teach in schools, however much you tinker with the exam system. The trouble with books is they’re written by writers and writers tend to have liberal minds and we really must stamp liberal thought out at all costs.
Rant over, but don’t forget to have a look at this book. They’re up to number 12 in the series, so it must be working.
Your Artist’s Brain || Carl Purcell
Posted by henry in Author: Carl Purcell, Medium: Various, Publisher: North Light, Subject: The creative process, Subject: Various on October 27, 2010
The whole “right side of the brain” thing can be applied to a great deal of creative endeavour and can be summed up as, “you need to develop an artist’s eye”.
Based on what I’ve picked up here and elsewhere, this comes down to the fact that your left, or intellectual brain, sees flat shapes while your right, emotional, artistic side sees colour, shading and texture whilst also understanding what it sees as a subject, rather than an object.
That’s about it, basically and I’ve saved you the cost of several books. So, is there anything left that you can learn from this one? Well, it’s a perfectly sound look at the creative process, covering a good variety of techniques and subject matter and there are plenty of good ideas. One of the things I struggle with is that, having banged on about colour, shading and depth, a remarkable number of the finished results are, well, a bit flat, which rather overturns the point of the book.
I think this is one you need to see before you buy. If you turn the pages and think, “I could learn from this”, then it’s for you. If, like me, it leaves you a bit disappointed well, don’t worry, there are plenty more fish in the sea.
Sketchbook Confidential || Pamela Wissman & Stefanie Laufersweiler
Posted by henry in Author: Pamela Wissman, Author: Stefanie Laufersweiler, Medium: Drawing, Medium: Sketching, Publisher: North Light, Subject: Various on October 25, 2010
This is subtitled “secrets from the private sketches of over 40 master artists”, but it’s worth noting that this is an American book and these are not, on the whole, names you’re likely to have come across before in the UK.
That doesn’t however, need to be an impediment because an artist’s sketchbook can reveal more about them than a whole volume of their own writing. What are the details they concentrate on, what subjects grab their attention out in the field, how do they select the quick ideas and work them up into a finished painting? If you learn about the creative process, it doesn’t really matter who’s telling you.
The problem here is that, although the book has no fewer than two editors, it has virtually no editorial content. Each artist gets 4 pages to present their sketches and say what sketching means to them and, guess what?, it means the same to all of them and the same it would to you and me – it’s a notebook, the basis for a painting. I’d never have guessed. Without some more context: some notes on the images, points to watch, colours and then examples, or at least a description of how they were used later, I just feel as though I’m looking at the raw ingredients for a banquet. The result could be a thing of beauty as well as interest, but I have no way of telling how.
This has the feel of a good idea hastily cobbled together and leaves me wanting so much more, which is a shame.
Learn To Paint Vibrant Watercolours || Hazel Soan
Posted by henry in Author: Hazel Soan, Medium: Watercolour, Publisher: Collins, Series: Learn To Paint, Subject: Various on May 9, 2008
Exactly what constitutes a vibrant watercolour is something we could discuss for the rest of our lives, but what Hazel Soan means by it is “[colours] that sing out from the page”, paintings that don’t suffer from fiddling and overwork and which don’t betray a lack of confidence on the part of the artist.
So far, you might say, so obvious, but Hazel Soan is a popular author whose style is that of simple palettes and brushstrokes and she has an enthusiasm that rubs easily off on the reader; put simply, when she tells you, you just know you can do it.
It’s hard, perhaps impossible, to define what this book is about and, in any case, it probably doesn’t matter. Hazel has many fans and they’re not going to be disappointed by it. Equally, new readers will probably join their number, too.
Collins 2000, reissued 2008
£8.99
