she paints; she is a painter

In the Tuesday Watercolor Class – Week 6 of the Fall of 2010, Barry Coombs demonstrated his “swatch” method of painting with flat or angled brushes. (You can follow the link to see his method.)  With careful observation we were able to model the objects with a build up of small color patches or “swatches”, varying the values from light to dark. This is a very liberating technique because one is less obsessed with the details of the objects. The results are usually fresh and exciting and reminiscent of the Pointillist paintings of the Neo-Impressionists. We all know Seurat’s  “Sunday Afternoon on the Island of the Grande Jatte”, but a lesser known painter from this group was Paul Signac. Barry, who is well-informed in art history, showed us a book of Signac’s watercolor sketches which I found almost riveting!

This still life with peppers looks very modern and fresh. I noticed his use of pencil (click image to enlarge) which is not just lightly present to establish the composition but is an integral part of the rendering of the image. This is very appealing to me.

Another sketch of his I found intriguing is this scene from Tréguier, a small coastal village in Brittany, France. Here is a sign of something … several years ago I happened to spend several days in this village and visited the very town center shown in the drawing with my long-time, dear friend, Françoise. Notice the strong drawing lines in pencil which give the image such wonderful energy!

Up to now you haven’t seen any work by me. And, this is after all my blog and its purpose is to show you my work; but, in this case, I wanted to give you an example of how one can be inspired and influenced by other artists. Drawing is natural to me and I got very excited to see these sketches by Signac. How did/do they influence me? Here are a few watercolors done in Barry’s class with his  “swatches” technique and some have the pencil drawing added: (A detail from the “Still Life with Pots” is the signature piece of this blog.)

The “Shoes” study was painted with a small brush making the “swatches” appear more in a pointillist fashion. This was fun too, because one had to be aware of the values of the overlapping  shapes, giving form to the objects.

“Pomegranates” study was done with a larger brush and deeper paint colors giving a more direct approach to the modeling of the shapes. The pencil drawing on top adds energy and definition to the whole.

“Aunt Daisy’s House”(below) was done last fall on a visit to Advocate Nova Scotia, discussed in the first blog of this post: What to Paint?  For this drawing I sat at the kitchen table in Laura’s family home built by her father. Looking out the window to her grandmother’s former house, I had the view of Advocate harbor and Cap D’Or in the distance, and the presence of one family’s long history in the Maritimes.

Sources:

Paul Signac A collection of Watercolors and Drawings, Arkansas Arts Center, Harry N. Abrams, 2000.

“Sunday Afternoon on the Island of the Grande Jatte”, Georges Seurat, 1884-1886, oil on canvas, The Art Institute of Chicago