Watercolours. Alwyn Crawshaw

his painting career), Sketching with Alwyn Crawshaw, The Half-Hour Painter, Alwyn Crawshaw’s Watercolour Painting Course, Alwyn Crawshaw’s Oil Painting Course and Alwyn Crawshaw’s Acrylic Painting Course.

      To date Alwyn has made five television series: A Brush with Art, Crawshaw Paints on Holiday, Crawshaw Paints Oils, Crawshaw’s Watercolour Studio and Crawshaw Paints Acrylics, and for each of these he has written a book of the same title to accompany the series.

      Alwyn has been a guest on local and national radio programmes and has appeared on various television programmes. In addition, his television programmes have been shown in the USA. He has made several successful videos on painting and in 1991 was listed as one of the top ten artist video teachers in America. Alwyn is also a regular contributor to the Leisure Painter magazine. Alwyn organises his own successful and very popular painting courses and holidays. He has also co-founded the Society of Amateur Artists, of which he is President.

      Fine art prints of Alwyn’s well-known paintings are in demand worldwide. His paintings are sold in British and overseas galleries and can be found in private collections throughout the world. Painted mainly from nature and still life, Alwyn’s work has been favourably reviewed by the critics. The Telegraph Weekend Magazine reported him to be ‘a landscape painter of considerable expertise’ and the Artists and Illustrators magazine described him as ‘outspoken about the importance of maintaining traditional values in the teaching of art’.

      St Clement’s Bay, Jersey Whatman 200 lb Rough

       38 × 55 cm (15 × 22 in)

      They said ‘Sunny intervals and dry!’ Waterford 300 lb Rough

       38 × 50 cm (15 × 20 in)

WHY DO ARTISTS PAINT?

      Painting is one of man’s earliest and most basic forms of expression. Stone Age man drew on his cave walls. Usually, these drawings were of wild animals and hunting scenes. It is difficult to say whether these were created by the artist to be instructional – a means of showing children what a certain animal looked like, for instance – or as a form of cave decoration, or whether they were just a relaxing pastime to release creative feelings.

      Whatever the reason, these early artists must have been a creative and dedicated people; there was no local art shop to provide them with their materials and no electric light to help on dark days. All this started over twenty-five thousand years ago and painting is still with us today.

      Naturally, over this long period, painting has become very sophisticated. Artist’s materials have also undergone vast changes and the tremendous range now available, plus the variety of methods that are with us today, can make painting very frightening for the beginner: people can be put off by not knowing where or how to start.

      HAVE YOU TRIED?

      One of the most frequent statements made to me is: ‘I wish I could paint’. My reply is always, ‘Have you tried?’ and invariably the answer comes back: ‘No, I haven’t. I wouldn’t know how to start’. How can anyone say they can’t paint when they have never tried! Have you ever asked anyone if they can drive a car? If the answer is no, it will usually be followed by: ‘I haven’t tried yet but I am going to have lessons’. There seems to be a veil of mystery around painting but not around driving a car! So let me clear up some of the mysteries surrounding painting, from a beginner’s point of view.

       If you like painting outside, Alwyn will help you experiment with watercolour styles and techniques.

      First of all, you may feel daunted by the sheer volume of work that has been created over the past thousands of years, the hundreds of styles and techniques used, from painting on ceilings to painting miniatures. There is Prehistoric painting, Greek painting, Egyptian painting, Byzantine painting, Chinese painting, Gothic art, Florentine painting, Impressionism, Surrealism, Abstract art, Cubism, and so on.

      Of course, all these styles can make the mind boggle and to unravel all of them and understand the differences could take a lifetime. So what are we to do and where do we start?

      The simplest answer is to forget all you have picked up in the past and start from the smallest beginnings like Stone Age man.

      FEELING CREATIVE

      Today, most people who want to paint have one thing in common – a creative instinct. Unfortunately, many people don’t realise this until later on in life, when something stirs within them or circumstances set them on the road to painting.

      For some people painting becomes a fascinating hobby. For others, it becomes their only way of expressing their innermost thoughts and leads to a means of communicating with other people. For anyone who happens to be house-bound, painting can have a real therapeutic function.

      Through painting, people meet and make friends either by joining art societies (most towns have one) or by progressing and selling their works at local art shows, in local shops and so on.

      I think, above all, painting can be a creative way of getting involved, forgetting your immediate troubles, great or small, and finishing up with a work of art that you can share with others and enjoy for the rest of your life.

      FIRST STEPS

      By now, as a reader of this book, you have taken your first big step. If you are a beginner, this means that you are curious about painting and want to find out all about it. You have also selected a medium with which to start: watercolour. If you already paint and are reading this book in order to learn about the medium of watercolour, then probably you are looking for exciting new ways to express your creative skills.

      So, as I said earlier, let’s start right at the beginning. But don’t rush out to find the nearest cave! I will take you through this book stage by stage, working very simply to start with and progressing to a more mature form of painting.

       Watercolour is also an ideal medium if you prefer painting at home or in a studio.

      If you have some watercolours, the most difficult thing to do at the moment will be to read on – your desire to try out the paint will have been stimulated by looking through the book and seeing the colour pages and different methods of working. If this is the case, I thoroughly recommend one thing first – relax and read on before you start. Then, when you do begin the lessons and exercises, enjoy them. If you find some parts difficult, don’t become obsessed with the problem. Go a stage further and then come back. Seeing problems with a fresh eye often makes them easier to solve.

WHY USE WATERCOLOURS?

      I am constantly asked why I paint in more than one medium. The reasons are varied. An artist sometimes uses a medium because he has been commissioned to do so or because he likes one medium more than another, but more important is the fact that each medium has its own mystique and, of course, a particular quality. There is also the restraint of size. For instance, a sheet of watercolour paper isn’t made large enough for a 76 × 152 cm (30 × 60 in) painting and neither is pastel paper, so the medium can determine the size of the painting. Finally, the subject matter has to be considered. When I am out looking for possible subjects, I see one as a subject for an acrylic painting, another as a perfect watercolour, and so on.

      Whatever your reason for choosing watercolour, even if it’s the obvious one – you like it! – you have made the