Don’t be a fair-weather painter
If you only paint when the sun shines you don’t know what you’re missing, says John Owen. Painting watercolours outdoors in rain, snow and wind can be very rewarding
My Kind of Country, watercolour, 14½x21¼in (37x54cm). Most of nature is abstract. Here the complex farmhouses emphasise the simple mountain shape. It was enough to get the contours, colour temperature and tones strong enough and some detail correct, then switch over to autopilot and paint intuitively and fast. My imagination interpreted the rest and draws the viewer into the ‘feel’ of the scene at that moment in which it was painted. Contrasts such as dark trees against a light background, straight lines, swirling textures, a flat wash on the mountain and a broken very fast dry-brushed foreground stimulate curiosity and keep the eye moving around the picture.
Ilove experiencing intense closeness to nature: her shapes, moods, colours, smells, the changing seasons; the birds, trees creaking in the wind; flowing water; my boots crunching on frozen snow. Above all, there’s the wonderful, uplifting effect of natural light, both on me and on my surroundings. Rather than drive around wasting time and energy searching for the non-existent ‘ideal subject’, I stick to familiar stamping ground. Every day is different; weather and light change constantly, revealing new compositions, and I enjoy the increasing intimacy that familiarity brings.
Fresh air sharpens my senses, I feel more alive with the wind in my face. Outdoors I do not have to struggle to invent tone and colour relationships; they are spread out before my eyes as a constant reference – I defy anyone to recall accurately the subtle tones and colours, back in the studio. Nature’s vast studio stimulates me to try harder, to get things right first time. I look more keenly, work faster and take risks.
Painting en plein air is thrilling, like running along a narrow path with a sheer drop on either side. The more I face this exciting challenge the freer and more confident I become. Under
an open sky, pictures grow fresher, more convincing and naturally authentic.
My approach
Why buy the purest pigments and reduce their luminosity by applying them to off-white paper? I use Saunders Waterford High White Rough in 300gsm and 425gsm, and Two Rivers. Distinctly separate hues that I can identify at a glance are essential to the momentum of applying paint. Speed of application is liberating and binds subconscious energy into a brushstroke. Just get down the main elements and do not be afraid to use juicy full strength paint - risk it. Let it mix on the paper and break the habit of washing out your brush too often. Use Escoda Perla brushes as tools to apply and sculpt paint.
Painting from the top of the sloping sheet I try to concentrate each passage into a minimum of brush movements. Depending on the effect I am after I flick or stroke on more paint as the sheen on the paper disappears by evaporation, absorption or freezing. The damper the paper, the more easily pigment disperses to create a softer edge. I have one chance to work into this first wash and I aim to finish it in one wet before starting the next.
Water’s free-flowing energy will generate effects spontaneously if I let it lead the way. I emphasise light by contrasting it with adjacent strong darks, often weakening the sky and strengthening the colours in the landscape to compensate for sunlight being far stronger than the light that will reflect off my finished picture when it hangs on a wall.
I seldom mix a pool of homogeneous colour but dart about the palette with the brush tip so that the ever-changing proportions of pigments blend on the paper surface, using contrasts of tone, hue and edge value to lead the eye as my design emerges. Lost highlights are mostly regained by scratching the drying paper with a sharp knife, which gives a livelier line than gouache.
This rapid energy-charged approach gives me a buzz but risks a lack of coherence in the final image, a nervetingling uncertainty that drives me on.
I know success is out there. Selfdiscovery lasts a lifetime - it is never ending. Have the resolve to persevere, serve the talent you have been given, work hard and enjoy the rewards. You are capable of far more than you think.