Our first evening back in the new year’s calendar and how nice to have one of our own members to do a demonstration for us.
Ian Deaves has been a member of our Club for many years now and is known for his watercolour and acrylic paintings. He paints quite prolifically and brought many examples of his work in watercolour with him for us to look at. Many of Ian’s paintings are of local scenes and most of those are in Rochford, all very recognisable to many of us.
With a drawing of South Street, Rochford already in place on a piece of Bockingford Watercolour paper, he was ready to start. The paper was not stretched as someone had suggested to Ian that after you paint on a piece of watercolour paper and then turn it over and wet it all over, the paper will dry flat and will be ready to mount. Apparently he has found that this works so no more stretching of paper for Ian. A tip worth trying I should imagine, especially if you are caught short and want to just paint and can’t wait for paper to dry.
Ian began by putting in the sky. Not an easy task with the board in such an upright position as he said himself, the paint runs! Using Cobalt Blue with Cerulean Blue he was off to a good start. Putting in a very large brown tree next, Ian explained that it was the light buildings against the darkness of this tree that drew him to paint this picture in the first place. Next on with the road colour and then on to some of the buildings, Ian worked away until tea break.
Having had a break and most of us having a good look at his other paintings he had brought along together with a closer look at the picture of the evening we all settled down to watch a bit more of the picture appear.
We watched as many doorways and windows appeared and what looked like a black shiplap building emerged on the left hand side of the picture. This building was painted in using a dark mix and then spritzed with water to give a textured look to it.
The picture didn’t quite get finished and so Ian will show us when he has completed the picture as we were all interested to see the finished article.
Lovely demonstration Ian, thank you very much. A nice way to start the new season as I said at the beginning of my report.
Report and photos courtesy of Cathy Newton
RAG 