WELCOME from the editor
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I’m delighted to welcome back Charles Williams to our pages this month. Charles, who was elected president of the Royal Watercolour Society last April, and is a member of the New English Art Club, has been a regular and popular contributor to The Artist over many years, but took a break from writing for us while he completed his PhD on drawing. Having finally handed it in, he’s back to what he loves most: painting. In his feature on pages 18 to 21, he offers a candid insight into the thoughts behind his unique, deceptively simple, meticulously painted compositions which are ‘compiled from a dialogue between him in his studio environment, and the stories and ideas that keep him company in both his imagination and memory.’ I’ve been asked by readers to include more features on painting from the imagination, so I hope that Charles’ thought-provoking explanations about the background to, and evolution of his ideas and the painting processes behind his intriguing paintings will inspire everyone to explore a more imaginative, creative approach to future work to see where it could lead.
The rest of this month’s issue is packed with other equally inspiring features designed to motivate your creativity and help develop your skills across a variety of subjects, using different media. Carole Robson, for example, demonstrates why it can be fun to experiment and combine gouache lift and other mixed-media techniques to create a ‘tulip fantasy’, while Paul Riley shows why, when and how to use the many colours of grey to capture atmosphere in your watercolour landscapes. Barry Herniman reveals how to paint a cascading waterfall using the bright pigments of Schmincke Horadam gouache, while Paul Talbot-Greaves explains the importance of mastering lost and found edges in your landscapes in oils – and both artists set a couple of helpful exercises for readers to try.
On pages 52 to 56, following several months spent testing and trialling the Hahnemühle Natural Line range of eco-friendly papers, Alan Bickley provides his in-depth report on their unique qualities as we celebrate the start of our new partnership with Hahnemühle, offering readers the opportunity to purchase the Hahnemühle Natural Line of exceptional artist papers and other Hahnemühle products from our recently launched online shop, Art Supplies with Painters Online. These high-quality papers are suitable for a variety of media including watercolour, acrylic, oil, pastels, and more. Discover more on page 56. Enjoy the issue.