John Singer Sargent understood better than any other watercolour artists of his age how to paint bright sunlight. His watercolours sing with heat and intense, sparkling sunlight. This was partly done though combining both watercolour and gouache, harnessing each mediums core characteristics. The flat dullness of gouache and the transparent glowing appearance of watercolour. Learn how he did this and harness this skill yourself creating sun drenched watercolour that shine off the page.
What to expect
Time at ArtisOn is designed to take you away from it all. We provide the environment, the time and the guidance you need to create. You can expect a warm welcome, skilled and friendly tutors and the chance to meet like-minded people keen to share ideas. You can even leave us to clear up the mess! There will usually be two workshops going on and we encourage everyone to mingle and be nosey about what the other workshop is up to.
We encourage you to arrive at 9.30am. This will allow time to meet other participants over a cup of tea or coffee and biscuits before beginning workshops at 10am. There will be a mid-morning break for refreshments and a chance to talk over progress with others. Lunch is usually around 12:45 for about 45 mins – you can expect a delicious homemade 2 course lunch. There will be a further afternoon break with tea or coffee and cake. All food and refreshments are included in the price of your workshop.
The finish time given is a target. There are occasions when the session may overrun so do let us know if you need to be away promptly.
We aim for your day to be a real treat. You could always learn a new skill in a shed or a draughty village hall with a curly sandwich, but we want you to have more fun than that! So we make sure we provide a day where you will be looked after, with good food, good company and great inspiration!
What you’ll need to bring with you
Materials list
Painting bright sun lit scenes using watercolour and gouache
We will be using both watercolour and gouache paints on this workshop. If you do not already have a set of gouache colours then think about buying just a few that are similar in colour to those you use most often in watercolour. Alternatively you can buy cheap sets of gouache from discount book shops like 'The Works' if you want to keep the cost down.
The following list is to help you put together your kit for the day. Please do not feel this is a fixed list of materials that you must purchase. If you already have watercolour painting equipment then it's likely to be adequate for the day.
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Please use this to help you check off the equipment you will need to bring when packing for the day.
Drawing equipment
A soft graphite pencil eg2b
A pencil sharpener
An erasure
Accessories
Masking tape
Several sheets of kitchen roll
A kitchen cloth - the blue type you clean your work benches down with
Watercolour palette
Water pots
Clear candle or oil pastels / crayons
Brushes
A wash brush
Large round approximately size 12 or 14
Flat chisel edged nylon brush also about half an inch wide.
Selection of smaller brushes you may have, including a size six if possible.
Paper
Watercolour paper cut or ripped down to approximately half imperial sheets size [ A2] or quarter of a full sheet [A3]this paper can be loose or in a pad. Please bring about 10 sheets of paper.
Jason advises bringing 'cold pressed' paper, this is sometimes referred to as 'not' paper, it's the same surface texture. The ideal weight is 140lb / 300gsm. This is the common type of watercolour paper sold in pads under brands like Bockingford and Langton.
Several sheets of cartridge paper or computer printing paper . These will be used to practise brush strokes and sketch out tree shapes.
Colours
It's unlikely you will need more than a basic set of colours - magenta red, ultramarine blue, lemon yellow , burnt umber on the day. But of you want to know the colours Jason will have in his palette they are as follows:
Cobalt Blue
Ultramarine blue
Lemon Yellow
Cadmium yellow
Cadmium Red
Quinacridone Majenta / permanent rose.
If you have an Alizarin Crimson this will work fine.
Prussian Blue
Cerulean blue
Cobalt turquoise light
Raw Sienna
Raw Umber
Burnt Sienna
Viridian green
Burnt Umber
Titanium white
Chinese white
Reference material
If you have sun lit images that you would like to work from, then please bring them to the class.
