Shapes, Shades and Shadows

A couple of weeks ago, I had the privilege of being taught how to use watercolours by the artist, John Gustard. I've had many drawing lessons, used lots of crayons, pastels, pens and pencils but brushes and colour had passed me by. It's been over three years since I last picked up any art material and suddenly I felt this longing again to see the world. Watercolour is very different: for a start it's fluid with a life of its own. Magic happens, there's an accidental quality to it. And how to see to paint is not the same as how to see to draw. Drawing is about lines, spaces, dimensions, whereas watercolour is about shapes, shades and shadows.

Art wasn't something that I did until I was 28. I realised that there was something imbalanced in my life and I needed to get both sides of my brain to work. Having enrolled in private and group drawing classes I could feel how my mind and body enjoyed and relaxed during the experience. Communication became non-verbal and a pen became free from the rigours of spelling.

When I was designing Regally Graceful™ Clothing I spent many weeks on intensive courses at both the London College of Fashion and Central St Martins and loved all that fashion illustration and learning to draw from dancers. But when the clothing part of my life closed, I also closed down part of my creative outlet too. It was time to get over it.

John Gustard has painted a couple of oil portraits of Millie-Pup and completely captured her style and feisty angelic nature. I knew that I could trust him to help me get back into the world of seeing and open up a whole new world of free expression in colour. There's something very dynamic about the relationshiop between a teacher and a student. It brings the student out, into a realm beyond their comfort zone, but one in which the teacher is so content in their mastery. That guidance is invaluable and whenever I can I always seek out the best people to learn from, wherever they are, whatever it takes.

I remember once sitting on the Eurostar next to a couple who had been to Paris for a romantic weekend. She was so tired that she rested her head on her husband's shoulder and was sweetly sleeping before the train had even left the Gare du Nord. Gently, he took a little sketch book out of his pocket. If I peered, discreetly of course, I could see that they were little pencils drawings of Parisian landmarks and some secret little rendez-vous that were obviously so special to them. By the time the train pulled into London (admittedly with a small delay) he had finished bringing those images to life and eternity with watercolour washes. It seemed highly appropriate that he used the complimentary bottle of French mountain water, full of health benefits didn't you know, to mix his colours in a tiny little box and then clean his brushes in afterwards. As I was packing up my belongings I saw him hand the book to his wife and the look on her face painted a thousand memories of love, rekindled honeymoons and communication beyond words.

I wanted to learn to do that.

This painting of the green chair in the Conservatory at Club 15CC is my first outing into watercolour. I sat down to paint it empty. Then Millie-Pup decided to sit in it and posed with all the grace, poise and elegance one can imagine royalty sitting for hours on end. It was a fortuitous angelic gesture: my life is not empty now, so why paint an empty chair?

That relationship of flow of watercolour between the paper and the brush, the water and the pigment is infinity in its potential, and yet so simple. The art of seeing somehow happens through that, as if in meditation.

John suggested that I look at the watercolours painted by Charles Reid. His work has a looseness, fluidity, and softness which I aspire to achieving. What's more he's sharing his wealth of experience, and it's really good practical stuff, on what to do and what not to do. Particularly I love his Watercolour Secrets book of his which intimately reveal to us his discoveries from a lifetime of painting watercolours.

Apart from the obvious technical lessons, the actual watercolours themselves are just gorgeous. It reminds me of some of the watercolours in one of my favourite books of all Seeing is Believing by the late John Miller whose oil painting of a Cornish beach captivated me and I meditate with each day. His work combines stillness and vitality in one image which inspires, uplifts and expands the viewer beyond words into the etheric blue (that's where the phrase out of the blue comes from).

Charles' book on Rendering the Figure in Watercolor Simply and Beautifully is also a treasure. That title with the key words of natural and beautiful in it sum up his view of the world - and mine too. Better still you can also watch Charles at work in his DVD (which I downloaded and will watch many many times more).

Having just finished the DVD for the first time, I will go back and revisit the green chair....