Watercolours. Alwyn Crawshaw

together over the next fifty-six pages, from simple beginnings to more serious exercises later.

      First, a word of caution. Because your earliest recollection of painting – probably when you were at infant school – is associated with the use of water-based paint (poster paint, powder colour or watercolour) you may have the impression that it is easy. Well, of course, to enjoy painting and get favourable results is relatively easy. However, to get the desired results through deliberate control of watercolour needs plenty of practice and patience, but the more you learn, the more you will enjoy using watercolour.

      WHAT IS WATERCOLOUR?

      Watercolour is so called because the adhesive that sticks the pigment powder to the paper is soluble in water. The paint is a finely ground mixture of pigment, gum arabic (the water-soluble gum of the acacia tree), glycerine (to keep the colours moist) and glucose (to make the colours flow freely).

      When water is loaded on to a brush and added to the paint on the palette, the paint becomes a coloured, transparent liquid. When this is applied to the white surface of the paper, the paper shows through and the paint assumes a transparent luminosity unequalled by any other medium. You buy the colours either in a half pan, a whole pan or a tube (see below). I will explain more about this in the equipment section.

       Half pan, whole pan and tube of watercolour paint.

      One great advantage of watercolour is that it requires no complicated equipment. For painting outdoors, for instance, your basic essentials are a pencil, a box of paints, a brush, paper and water. You will find that the paint dries within minutes of its application to the paper as the water evaporates, leaving the dry colour on the surface. This process can be seen when working. While the paint is shiny on the paper, it is still wet and you can move it about or add more colour with the brush, but as soon as the shine goes off the paper (the paint is now in an advanced drying stage) you must leave it alone and let it dry. If you try to work more paint into it, you will get nasty streaks and blotches.

      Because the paint dries quickly – especially if you are under a hot sun – watercolour painting does not favour faint hearts. If you think you are in that category, don’t worry. You will gain confidence as you read and work through the book.

      Before you start a painting, you need to have a plan of campaign in your mind. Naturally, as you progress, this will become second nature to you. When I was at art school I was taught to look and observe and, ever since, I have always looked at the sky as if it were a painting and considered how it had been done – in which medium, with which brush, which colour was used first, and so on. I see things as colours, and techniques of painting.

      PAINT CONTROL

      Nevertheless, you will have to accept the fact that not every watercolour painting is a success – not to you, the artist, that is.

      You will find that you paint a beautiful picture, everyone likes it and it is worthy of being put into an exhibition, but there will be passages of that painting where the watercolour was not completely under your control and it made up its own mind about the final effect. Well, this is an accepted characteristic of watercolour painting – only the artist knows how he made the paint behave or misbehave! But when you paint a good picture with plenty of watercolour effect and it was all under your control, then you will have achieved a small, personal ambition which will no doubt elevate you into that special band of dedicated watercolourists.

	French Ultramarine
	Crimson Alizarin
	Yellow Ochre
	Hooker’s Green No. 1
	Cadmium Yellow Pale
	Cadmium Red
	Coeruleum
	Burnt Umber
	Payne’s Grey

       The first six colours illustrated above are the colours that I use for all my paintings. The following three I only use occasionally. All these colours will be referred to throughout this book. Please note that this colour chart is produced within the limitations of printing and is intended as a guide only.

      ADDITIONAL COLOURS AVAILABLE

      Naples Yellow

      Lemon Yellow

      Permanent Yellow

      Cadmium Yellow

      Aureolin

      Chrome Lemon

      Gamboge (Hue)

      Chrome Yellow

      Cadmium Yellow Deep

      Indian Yellow

      Chrome Orange (Hue)

      Cadmium Orange

      Chrome Orange Deep

      Vermilion (Hue)

      Permanent Red

      Rose Doré (Alizarin)

      Scarlet Alizarin

      Scarlet Lake

      Carmine

      Crimson Lake

      Permanent Rose

      Purple Lake

      Purple Madder (Alizarin)

      Permanent Magenta

      Cobalt Violet

      Permanent Mauve

      Violet Alizarin

      Prussian Blue

      Indigo

      Monestial Blue

      Cobalt Blue

      Permanent Blue

      Alizarin Green

      Sap Green

      Monestial Green

      Olive Green

      Hooker’s Green No. 2

      Viridian

      Terre Verte (Hue)

      Cobalt Green

      Brown Pink

      Raw Sienna

      Burnt Sienna

      Light Red

      Venetian Red

      Indian Red

      Brown Madder (Alizarin)

      Raw Umber