The rich Japanese tradition of self-expression, poetry, and personal greetings has inspired Print Goko.
Your own color screen printing set.
Print Goko is a revolutionary process that allows you the freedom to create your own original art forms and print them on virtually anything.
Best of all, the process is simple and safe, quick and clean, for only pennies per print.
Master the art of Print Goko with expressive designs and vivid colors.
It brings out the artist in everyone.
From greeting cards and announcements to stencils and decorations, Print Goko gives you the personal touch with a quality look.
Tradition meets technology with Print Goko.
Your own personal color screen printing set.
Print Goko. Everything you need to make a lasting impression.
Print Goko is a product you'll be hearing a lot about in the future because it brings the remarkable color screen printing process right to your home or to your business.
I'm going to show you how to create your own vividly colored prints in just a few of the hundreds of different ways to use them.
It's the colorful and creative world of Print Goko, and you're going to find out just how easy and versatile it actually is.
So please watch closely.
First create the design. Be inventive. Use your imagination.
Even if you don't think of yourself as an artist, keep watching.
You'll be surprised at the kinds of designs you can make.
Use photocopies of illustrations from magazines, newspapers, or books.
Or take advantage of the original artwork that comes with Print Goko.
You'll find pictures, lettering, and designs.
You can even photocopy found objects like leaves, lacework, or paper towels.
You may draw your own using India inks, black crayon, or the reso pen.
Or use a combination of art that you find with art you create.
One thing to remember, the purpose of Print Goko is to have fun.
You don't need technical skills in layout or design.
And if you're ever at a loss for artwork, I'm sure there's someone around the house who's willing to lend a hand.
Now prepare the master.
Simply place your artwork on the pad and insert the master sheet.
Then position two special flash bulbs into the lamp housing.
Press firmly, and just like that, your master's ready.
Artists offer a painter a manner of delight, certainly, frustrations, even despair, but always a challenge.
But a scientist can lay the freedom and yet keep the fragility of the flower to convey the color, whether delicate or vibrant.
To put on the shadow colors, that's nearly always a trick one.
And the backgrounds. At this stage, a painting, which has been progressing beautifully, can fall down and become an odee.
Color is something I get very excited about, and I love it.
But there's a certain amount of drawing that one needs to do.
Each subject has its own structure.
And so when I'm beginning, that's what I'm looking for.
So I'm going to contune this rather lovely full-blown yellow rose.
Obviously, if I'm going to do a watercolor, I would draw on in pencil.
But if I did that here on this glaring white paper, you would be able to see it.
So I want to process in charcoal so that it shows up.
If you can get the plotting drawing right, then all the petals will fit.
And so often that is a problem.
Now what I'm doing at the moment is just getting the basic design that the whole group of petals make.
And you see that for the sort of soft base to a triangle here, coming up to a bit of a point there with that top petal.
And then, of course, there are one or two petals that go over the line, like this one here.
And I'm looking again at the space shapes because they can keep me on course.
Then here I've got a space shape that goes in there, meeting up with another petal which comes across there.
So I get a nice little gap in there, and into that fits the next row of petals.
Coming back down here, I've got this pointed one.
And watch where this next row comes in. It goes in there.
And then here comes the next outer shape again.
But within that triangle shape, and it all fits in very nicely and stops one from losing one's way.
Having got that, I'm going back to the middle.
Because here again I've got a triangle in the center piece.
The top half of the triangle is shaped by two petals looking like tricorn hats, which give me a lovely shape to do, which is really very pleasing.
And the base here makes a triangle, and then this petal sits up this way, completing that particular triangle.
And in the heart of the rose, I can just see a little tangle making the center.
And here comes the second tricorn hat, sitting up there.
Having done the outside triangle, the interior triangle, I can now continue fitting in the next row of petals.
And this way, it should all fit nicely.
And it stops you from losing your way.
You see, it does fit. It is highly satisfactory.
And if one was drawing on in pencil, these lines would be whisper-lite.
I'm just doing them like this so that you can see them.
Now I would just continue with the flower petals like that in pencil when I want to do a paint.
Now let's just have a look at the leaves, because here I've got a lovely light edge on that bottom petal,
which is going to be shown up by a really nice deep dark green leaf.
So I want to know where that goes. I want to know where the stem is coming through.
And here we've got a really good stocky stem.
Never a good idea to make the stems of flowers weak.
The join where leaves and stems emerge from the main stem is an area also where one needs to obey the flower design.
And looking at the space shape here can give you how the flower join happens.
And that, again, can keep you on course.
When you're doing a leaf, and if you feel you've got any problems with that, do all the easy bits first.
Now I'm doing where the leaf begins there.
I'm looking to see where the widest part of the leaf comes, in this case about here.
And the shape that happens at the point, this one's hanging right down so I can see the whole leaf.
And then that can join up, you see, like that.
It goes out a little bit wider there and in, and the centerpiece through there.
Then we've got the stem for this one emerging through here.
Again, the beginning.
Adds a bit of a slope there.
The centerpiece goes straight through the widest bit there and here in this instance.
This is rather shallow shaped there initially.
Then it swells and then it comes in to its point.
This one just arcs nicely and evenly right the way down and then goes into the point.
Then you'll have the shape of that particular leaf.
Now for this painting I'm using Bockingford 140.
The paints that I'm using are actually pans because I like to have the availability of them.
I don't like that I can go into a paint immediately.
I'm rather impatient and even squeezing the tube out is frustrating.
The yellow I'm using here is cadmium lemon and a little bit of aurelian.
And I've got it very diluted.
And I'm washing on great large areas of yellow so as to isolate just one or two petals that I wish to keep dry and white.
White is one of the most powerful colors that you have in watercolor.
And one doesn't want to lose it too early on in the painting.
So I'm leaving these areas dry and white and letting the other yellows run into each other.
Which gives a certain amount of softness to the whole head.
This color that I'm using now has got a lot of aurelian in it.
And with it I can define one or two edges.
The outer petals are in this case quite a lot into shadow and are picking up a much cooler light.
They're turning away from the sun and the interior of the rose and facing outwards.
So they need to be cool and also quite positively in shadow.
The color I'm using for this is cerulean and cobalt and into that I've added some rose madder.
When I say rose madder, permanent rose is the same color.
As I'm working back in a little nearer to the core, I'm adding the yellow that I've used.
And the yellow with the purple is actually creating a lovely bronze color which is just right for the shadow color in that area.
If you get a drip, roll it up with a brush.
Wipe the brush on the tissue but don't put the tissue on the painting.
And again going round one or two edges which show up the lighter petals.
That way you are using the tones to show up the edges and never being tempted into using nightline.
In the very heart of the rose, the warmer the better.
Here I'm using aurelian a little more strongly and even adding a little bit of rose madder into it which is giving you that lovely rich glow color.
I'm letting that go in while the first color is wet.
I've got a wasp. He's actually come to drink but I haven't realized he's actually making marks on my painting.
I think I'll leave that.
Jack St. Paul had a dying moth in one of his paintings.
So now I'm adding a little darker color to get that center bit.
If you've got madder brown, you could use that with a little bit of red.
Or burnt umber and a little bit of red would provide that little bit of intensity in the middle.
And again putting it on while the color is damp so that you keep it soft.
Where the strong light is falling on several petals, the temptation is to isolate each petal.
Actually the flower works better if you leave several light petals without too much definition.
Here I'm just using a little bit of pale color on the outer petals.
But the other petals I'm going to leave virtually unpainted.
It's important all the time to watch for the form.
Light bleaches out texture so you sacrifice it on the light side and put the texture in on the shadowed side.
Just a little extra warmth going in now to define that fold back of the petal.
If that line there is a bit too hard, I add a little water just below it and that invites a bleed.
And again softens that line.
So I'm putting the water below the paint and then it'll bleed forward.
The color will only go where it's wet anyway so you are in control.
Now because I'm going to change color because I'm coming now to do the leaves,
I have cleaned the palette off from all the yellows and pinks and reds that I've been using.
Because I am rather fussy about working with a clean palette.
Especially for flowers where the colors need to be so clean and fresh.
Where there's a lot of sheen and shine on the leaves, you actually lose the color of the leaf.
You need to observe what color it really is.
And I'm getting quite a blue reading.
So I'm going to start by putting on the blue shine on the light areas of the leaves.
Into this green now that I'm making, it's ultramarine, yellow ochre, then a little bit of cadmium yellow as well.
To give it a bit more freshness and brightness.
The simpler you do the leaves, the better they look.
There's a lovely opportunity to show up that light petal against a very, very dramatically green leaf.
I'm doing the edge here.
I'm then just filling this in, but leaving a little shine along that curl back.
It's just enough to suggest a little bit of texture and still keeping it simple.
This is now dry.
It gives me a chance to actually suggest a little of the veining.
Or rather the sort of bumps that you get between one bit of veining and another.
I'm putting on patches of darker green and leaving the blue to show through.
All the little stems and little joined pieces I'm painting in almost pure yellow because there's so much light coming through them.
And the fact that I've used blue on the leaves and I'm now using nearly pure yellow on the joins,
at the end of the day the whole reading will be very green.
The stem is nice and stocky and strong.
Having put the lighter colour in first, I'm now mixing a darker colour into which I've dropped a little bit of red.
And put that in now while it's wet. It just runs down by itself.
In this way you have the illusion that the stem is rounded and not a flat cut out shape.
Watercolour you have to think it all out beforehand.
I call it malice of all thought.
Now we've got the finished painting here to have a quick look at it.
You'll see how I really have kept the top very light and not given them too much texture.
I've used warm colours for the centre of the rose and the cooler outside colours, thereby creating the form.
The roses that I've just indicated into the background are almost totally out of focus.
It's just the faintest suggestion there which one can use if one wants to.
Before we go on to doing any more, there are one or two exercises that you might like to do at home that I really strongly recommend.
One is a silhouette and the other is a short exercise in showing form.
This particular exercise of drawing a plant in pure silhouette is a way of bringing home to one the idea of watching for the space shapes.
The space shape here and the space shape there between the leaves and the head.
And on this side again the space shape, the interruption between the leaves.
And then these little tiny space shapes in between.
Now I'm just plotting this subject out and checking where everything comes in relationship to each other.
So the width, height, one or two leaf shapes in here.
And I'm looking at the space shapes, not leaf by leaf by leaf.
But acknowledging that two or three leaves overlapping with each other are actually making a new and rather exciting unexpected shape.
And the flower heads are also overlapping one against the other and making new shapes.
And it can in fact look very, very attractive.
But the point of this is to know that you can allow a certain amount of overlap to happen in a painting which is more restful.
It also, I hope, makes you more aware of the space shapes.
And they are tremendously good indication of the design of the plant.
And I find them a great aid, it's a real shortcut and tremendous help in getting the whole thing to balance and be in proportion with itself.
So I'm concerned here as you can see with the outline and not all the little bits in between.
Now here we can see those same space shapes on the drawing itself.
Now I'm going into the paint.
I've chosen a sort of reddy brown colour, quite strong.
And I'm going to fill the whole silhouette with this colour.
And just let it run down into all these prepared silhouette shapes.
You can use any colour you like because the colour is not now describing the plant, just the shape alone.
And you can get some rather charming results doing this.
Just these last few little bits and there you've got a silhouette.
Which, despite the fact that it's not showing the different leaves and the different flower heads, it looks like a wallflower.
A lot of flower heads are made up with a number of little flowers, as with this lovely blush white geranium.
Or even flower heads made up with a lot of complicated petals.
For this exercise I want to show you that it's important to get the whole three dimensional form of the flower head first.
Before worrying about the individual petals.
So I'm using a little bit warm and cold colours here once more.
And keeping the colours very light on the light side, a little stronger on the dark side.
So that I've established the volume of the head long before I worry about any texture of any sort.
I'm just adding a little bit of yellow and green at the base of the stem.
Which one can do, again with a nice full brush with a good point.
And indicating the centres of the flower, flower heads.
But not on all of them, just on a couple.
And the rest I leave blank.
The less detail you put on the light side, the better the form is.
And that one shadowed petal there, leaving the other three petals white.
Again establish a very sculptured form of that flower in the front.
And that's all you need to do.
These exercises that you can do at home are tremendously useful.
They're a great help to train the eye.
Something you'll be doing automatically the more practice you get.
So now I think we'll go out of doors again.
My passion is doing wild flowers, weeds and things that you find...
Lovely, lovely.
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
I mean fundamentally I'm agreeing with you.
Yes, look Gareth, power is the corrupting influence isn't it?
Yes, yes, yes.
And power in the wrong hands is a very, very dangerous, dangerous...
Certain isolated clusters of heads and what they're with.
The cluster of buttercups, the cluster of thistles, the cluster of margarites.
Where they're against a light background, where they're against a dark background.
You have to do a bit of planning.
And it's well worthwhile spending a little time just looking.
Now I've actually used masking fluid this time because I had so many daisies that I wanted to keep nice and bright and white.
So I have used the masking fluid carefully to show up the shape.
Having let it dry I can now wet the entire paper.
Because when I'm doing wild flowers, that is to say several different sorts of flowers in a group,
I like to start with what I personally call blushing.
So I wet the whole paper and drop in areas of colour.
So I have a yellow blush where I'm planning the buttercups to come.
A pinky mauve blush where I've got the thistles to come.
And a grey-green blush where I've got a little bit of background green behind the margarites in the distance.
And I let this all blend into itself so that there are no hard joins.
This takes away the white paper and allows the following painting to have more cohesion.
It won't look so bitty as it might do if the whole thing started off on dry white paper.
At the back here there are several margarites in the distance.
And then beyond that is a little bit of darker green so that gives me a little shape there.
The sorrel coming through at the back, again I'm putting in now just the suggestion on it,
running the paint down while it's all wet.
So obviously I had the paper really wet to begin with.
Now adding a little bit of deeper yellowy green here so that it's quite a yellowy green near the yellow buttercups.
So I'm maintaining a glow in the middle of the painting.
I rather enjoy this bit having established the pale yellow from that initial blush which is now dry.
I'm now deepening the yellow around the buttercups as it were cutting them forward.
And having the pale yellow on the buttercups themselves and the deeper yellow in the background,
it amplifies the colour of the buttercups.
The napweed which I established that area first of all with the Moby blush,
I'm now deepening the colour underneath the head and I'm using rose madder with just a little bit of cerulean blue in it
to shadow up from below and the top of the flower I'll leave.
That comes from the initial blush.
So I'm clashing again the colour a little bit here from the pinky mauve to the more bluey mauve.
Just dropping a little extra emphasis here because that one is quite dramatic.
The little bulbous piece underneath which has such an attractive shape.
I'm going here now and the stems are this dark colour as well which keeps the whole colour theme in this patch again altogether.
Watching where the stems come through and belong to each other, some pale, some strong, that can all help to give the three-dimensional effect to the group of the flowers.
On this side I'm now cutting out some marguerite in shadow from that initial bluey green blush that I had.
And I'm going very carefully around the major intrusions into the daisy shape.
I'm just looking for the major gaps between petal and petal.
When I'm drawing a daisy head, first thing I'm looking for is the width.
I'm making a diagram of the shape and then I'm looking for the major petal interruptions, the major ones.
Not every single one, but just those major intrusions.
It makes it so much easier. Here we've got another gap tooth.
So that's what I'm drawing. The rest of it can be like a little diagram.
Stem shapes is something that I am rather fussy about, which is one of the reasons why I like to paint flowers out of doors where they grow,
so that the direction of the stems is the flower's natural shape.
Putting in the darker stems helps to show up on a tour of the light heads.
Without being pedantic about it, a little bit of dark, but you don't want dark all the way around.
The sorrel blush is now dry and I'm putting in a little bit more detail, just scribbling little circles in the paint,
so that you get some out of focus and some in focus.
Here I'm cutting out another daisy head from the background.
When I pull the masking fluid off, there will be some daisies in sharp white and some daisies in the background colour,
and that will also help the 3D effect.
Once you've established the outline, you'll have to take the colour away from it immediately.
What you don't want is to be left with an outline.
A little bit of dark coming through here is rather nice, because it just shows up the flowers.
With some of it being out of focus and some of it being more in focus,
you've got the feeling that there is light and colour going through and around and behind,
and giving the whole thing a lot of air.
I'm now cutting out a light leaf by painting behind and dropping a little bit more dark in,
so that this leaf seems to appear.
That's rather fun doing that.
The thing is, the trouble is, it gets very moorish and you long to do more and more,
all the time, as with any painting.
You just stand back and judge whether you should do any more or whether you should leave things well alone.
On this side of the painting, I've actually got a dark bush behind,
and it's a good opportunity to put in a bit of dark paint behind what will be the very light margarites
when I pull off the masking tape.
Now I'm dropping colour into this really wet patch.
A little bit of ultramarine, a little bit of raw umber,
and again a bit of raw umber to show up this cold and warm grey shadow at the back of the bush.
This will help to throw the margarite well forward.
Let the colour, let the pigment just run in the wet,
because the way it granulates by itself without you doing anything helps to give texture.
You don't have to do it.
Watercolour will do it for you.
Now before taking off the masking fluid, the painting needs to be bone dry.
It's a big mistake to start rubbing out if you've got some damp patches in it still,
because then you just tear the paper.
I'm using a good clean soft rubber and rubbing across the masking fluid,
and it should peel off really easily.
And having done that, how exciting, I've got all these lovely white areas,
and I'm going to put in the yellow centres.
I'm using cadmium pale here for the centre bumps,
and then I should be putting in a little bit of gamboge or cadmium deep around the base
to help to give them this three-dimensional look that they are raised.
Having done that, it's now time to shade in a few of the petals.
A little cast shadow here from the bumps, I've let the blue and the yellow run together.
Some of the shadow will in fact be blue on white,
but again one needs to look because there might be some echoes around of other colours.
You can have a warm white and often a cold white.
Now to sum up, when you've got a subject like this,
which has got lots of different flowers in, therefore lots of different colours,
if you're really looking, you'll find that they do grow in groups,
and going with that, it does stop it being messy and bitty.
You can see I've got a whole area of buttercups, glowy and yellow in the middle,
then an area of the moby colours with the knapweed, the cooler grasses,
the darker hedge behind the several overlapping heads of white margarites,
and then on the other side the cooler blue greens.
Leading up from the glue in the middle, I've got the sorrel coming up,
so that maintains that centre part.
Keeping the colours in groups like that does stop a painting like this from getting bitty.
Why I like to do flowers out of doors is because I love seeing the quality of light falling on the landscape,
falling amongst and on and through and so on of the flowers.
And then the bluebellwood again, you've got the light streaming through and filtering through the trees onto this amazing colour.
And there you have it.
I hope you enjoyed this video.
If you did, please like and subscribe, and I'll see you next time.
Bye!
Not everybody has access to such beautiful country, or even wants to paint out of doors.
There are lots of flower subjects that one can do indoors, and pot plants are available to us all year round.
Aren't these just beautiful? I love seeing flowers against the light like this, with the light literally coming through the head.
Also seeing them almost silhouetted, you're so much more aware of the design shapes and the form of the flower.
What I might try and do is pick one or two of them out and put them on the table and see which one I might like to paint.
I'll try these two. I'll put them down here. Try and get them in the sun a little bit.
The sun moves round so fast. There, doesn't that look lovely?
I just want to see how that looks with the light coming through. I think that might be really lovely to do.
When you're doing a drawing composed of several three-dimensional subjects like these three pots,
I'm going to place the one that's nearest to me first, down at the bottom,
and then watching the space shapes arrange the other subjects behind and around them,
at this point making quite sure they does all fit on the given space.
Having drawn it on, as we've done the other ones, now I can get into the exciting colour.
I'm using pure rose madder here, starting with the cool colour at the top of the geranium.
Now I know that geranium is bright red. Nevertheless, where the light is falling on the very, very top,
I'm putting on this little bit of cool colour to show just that,
and then immediately running in a very orangey red with a lot of yellow in it,
so that I'm getting quite deliberately a clash, adding more orangey yellow at the bottom,
and then deepening up the colour with just much, much stronger red.
If you put cadmium red on white paper, as it dries it'll go pink,
but by putting it in with yellow, it'll maintain that rich orangey red.
This leaf that we're doing now has a lot of that very, very yellowy green,
so I'm using cadmium yellow and just a little bit of ultramarine.
A lot of the other leaves have got the red of the geranium in them,
so it's mostly a diluted cadmium red that I'm putting on as a base to these leaves.
Some of these leaves are rather fluted, so you're getting quite definite facets of light and shade.
And by keeping this contrast, you'll show the light in your painting.
So what is light, keep really light, and then you have the opportunity to put in the contrast.
And here, letting the colour run down into the other.
Just leaving a few white lines here, really, because I'm impatient,
and I'm not allowing one part to dry before I'm moving on to the next,
so I have to keep a little edge in between.
And sometimes I leave them and sometimes I blend them together later.
This is where that exercise we did earlier on, watching the space shapes, can again be a guide.
I'm keeping my brush very, what I call, very quiet, keeping the movements smooth and straightforward.
Agitating a brush really only shows indecision.
You're rather hoping that the paint will sort of do itself.
And again, watching the directions of the stem and how they interplay with each other.
Now this leaf has got several different greens in it, a sort of bluey facet,
and then a very dark centre facet.
And while I'm doing this, I need to be very precise.
So I'm leaning my little finger, the back of my nail, against the paper, and that just steadies my hand.
It's a good idea, because that's not going to hurt the paper at all.
Now starting on this very dramatic pot, I'm going in for that very dark colour.
That's ultramarine with a little bit of rosemary in it, and here comes some ultramarine on its own,
keeping that very, very purple and exciting.
And then here I'm adding a little bit of the light red round the corner.
And so once again, I'm clashing the colour, warm and cold, to show the form.
Now these bowls have got this lovely blue rim, and although they are creamy white, they're very much in shadow.
So I'm putting in a greeny grey here, ultramarine, a little bit of yellow ochre, touch of red.
This is a little bit more dilute as it's further forward, got some reflection from the table up into this bowl.
So dropping that in, a little bit of yellow coming up from the table can blend together.
A little bit of patterning in it, and doing it now while it's wet instead of while it's dry,
means that it's out of focus and rather softer, and hopefully doesn't detract from the flower subjects themselves.
This pansy is a gorgeous subject. I think pansies are delightful to paint.
Lovely shapes, lovely opportunity for colour.
This one is against the light, so I've got a lot of yellow in this red mixture.
Cadmium yellow with cadmium red, a lot of yellow going on first, and then the red on the top.
Always pausing and having a look at the subject, no point in keeping your head down all the time.
You have to look up to the subject all the time so that you keep the same relationships.
I'm now dropping in a little bit of brown madder.
If you haven't got brown madder, you could use burnt umber with a bit of rose madder in it.
It could get pretty much the same effect.
As it's darker, obviously I'm using less water.
Again, same mixture as before, just even denser, bleeding it in while it's wet,
using either blue or black for this just wouldn't work. It would kill the poor flower.
Lovely wide aprons that pansies have. A little bit of dark on this as well.
You have to wait for the paint to get damp rather than sopping wet for this
because you don't want the dark colour to run all over it.
Now the blue pansy. To try and imitate this perfect colour that the pansy has got
is quite difficult in paint. No one colour will do it.
So I'm clashing colours. We don't truthfully there,
but putting them on next to each other and while they're wet and allowing them to bleed together
is actually going to give me some of the vibrancy that nature has.
This colour I'm using at the moment is Prussian blue with rose madder,
which makes the most exciting purple, richer than any cobalt violet could be.
And here again some pure blue, cerulean, cobalt, ultramarine, all going in next to each other.
They'll run together on the paper itself. A little bit more rose madder going in there.
Now I've cleaned my palette and I'm going to come into the shadowed area on the table.
So I'm giving this a wash using yellow ochre with a little tiny little bit of light red in it
and adding lots of water so that the next colour can spread nicely in it.
The same colour, but just a little bit more dense, a little bit less water in this.
And then tipping the paper around so that it granulates and flows.
Now on top of all this yellow I'm mixing a purpley colour, which is of course the opposite of yellow,
and glazing it over the yellow which gives me a pretty nice shadow colour.
Sometimes cooler, sometimes a bit warmer.
These shadow colours again are almost like silhouettes but on the table.
And because they're shadows they're somewhat elongated.
Putting them in first and then one can soften them a little bit with some water afterwards.
Now the background. Once more water right to all the edges.
Nice big brush and then carefully round the actual subjects and dropping the paint in.
Now here I've left a tiny little white dry edge,
again to emphasise the brilliance of the light falling on the head of that terranium.
This colour going on looks very dark, but because it's going into a very very wet area,
it will fade off as it bleeds away.
So one needn't be too frightened of the alarming things I'm doing.
Again adding a bit of yellow glow colour there to set off the light behind the pansy.
Just catching up a few drips from the edge here.
This subject is all about light and colour.
It's absolutely joyous with the light coming through it.
And this sort of thing one can set up in one's own home at any time during the year.
Whether it's cyclamen or geraniums or pansies, something that's available to you.
Now we're going to have a look at a flowerbed subject.
A herbaceous border and in this lovely cottage garden there's so much choice.
I like to paint the flowers where they're growing in the flowerbed.
And here we've got so much to choose from.
But I've seen something rather nice over here.
When I'm starting to put on a subject as complicated as this, to give it some kind of cohesion,
I've also got to work out where the layout is on the given space of my piece of paper.
First of all I'm looking to see if the highest points of those tall delphiniums are going to fit in there.
Then I'm looking to see the base of the painting, how this is going to look.
I've got these pale roses right down on the bottom and some very lovely leaf shapes.
I want to get that layout comfortably on.
And then the most important thing of all, the bases of these delphiniums are creating a lovely rhythm.
You're going up and then down and down and down.
And getting those bases to form that rhythm is going to give a bit of cohesion to what could otherwise look like total confusion.
Now I'm wetting the paper, preserving the bit at the bottom that's dry.
I'm using Arches paper this time, a lovely big piece, and it's 140.
And I haven't had to stretch it because it's still on the block, so it's nice and firm and gives me a good base.
So having got it all wet, I'm now just carefully going around these areas that I wish to keep white.
And as soon as the rest of it is all nice and wet, because it's quite a bright day today, so I've really got to keep it wet,
I'm preparing now some color to lay on the blush area for the delphiniums.
So I'm mixing a little cerulean, a little cobalt, a little rosemada to get a moly color.
And I'm just dropping that in, into the wet on the paper, letting it flow down.
It just gives a base which forms the background to the flower painting later.
Again, clashing the different blues, a little bit of cerulean going in there.
And this will run over my drawing lines. That doesn't matter.
I am really setting up these areas as blushes.
And even putting in some quite strong blue while it's wet.
And again, it's running away into the water, so it doesn't stay as strong as that.
A little more rosemada into this mixture, so it's decidedly more of a pinky move.
And while this one's wet, I'm actually dropping in the darker colors,
always trying to establish the volume of the column before I worry about the little florets and petals.
This very dark one behind is giving me an opportunity to show up the light one in front.
Again, the stage keeping it soft and out of focus.
Now the paper's getting towards being dry, so the drier it gets, the more control one has.
I'm still hoping to get a little bit of the fuzziness.
Now I'm going around this dry area which I left from the beginning and cutting out the precise petal shapes.
But the rest of it is wet still, so those outlines can flood away.
The more you can let the paint travel in the water, the more natural your watercolor will look.
This very dark color I've fixed, ultramarine and yellow ochre.
I'm just putting some dark on here, but I'm realizing actually the paper's gone a bit dry,
so I'm going to add a lot more water to reestablish that wet area and then continue again.
When it's a fine day like today, this is constantly happening.
Now there's more yellow ochre in this, and again I'm outlining the tip of one of those delphidiums
and quickly brushing the color away so that it doesn't stay a hard outline.
One has to work quite fast at this, and again letting it blend away.
And then back to the next little bit of cutout.
In between some of the little bud heads and around some of the edge of the delphinium,
watching for the profile edge and then blending that back quickly again while that's nice and wet.
Cutting across the top of a few of the fevered few flowers, creating a nice serrated edge.
One doesn't have to go around every flower head, but they're grouping together and creating a little ridge there.
Just a bit below that one again, flooded back.
If you're not being able to work too fast, you have to keep adding water so that you don't get these hard lines.
Now going around some of these heads like this and then flooding it away cuts the blush out like the opposite of a silhouette,
making one conscious of the design form and the spaces in between.
Now I'm going to have a look at this rose here at the bottom,
and I particularly want to get this effect of the down, bright sunshine and the shadow caused by those falling forward petals.
Again relying on the idea of warm and cold colors to a large extent and not doing too much texture where the light is falling.
So I'm going in here with Yellow Ochre, quite strong, quite definite, against the dry white petals above.
Now there's a nice curved shape here to that cast shadow.
In the center of this one there's definitely a coral color, sort of a salmon pink.
So I've added into my Yellow Ochre a little bit of Rose Madder.
Those two together make a very beautiful coral color, very pale on the outside petals.
And again Rose Madder in with some Aurelian and dropping that into the center.
It looks quite dramatic, but again it fades in the wet that's already there.
There's a difficulty with watercolor, always relying on the fact that the color being added to what's already wet doesn't remain as strong as when you first put it on.
And letting a color be shared across several petals can be rather a restful area.
It means that your attention is going back to the centers of the roses.
Now I want to show up this leaf has been very light. There's a lot of sharp down light on this leaf and I don't want to put too much paint in it at all.
Some of the color is from the original blush anyway, and so now I'm just wetting the center of the leaf and up a little bit from that.
And then dropping the paint in there so that it creeps upwards, giving that curved bounce from the center of the leaf.
And that's enough.
If one wants to suggest a little bit of the grooving from the veins, again preparing it with a wet brush first.
Like this.
Just shaping it, just with clean wet water and then dropping the pigment into it. That's rather fun.
And then just softening it around the base of the leaf again with a wet brush and allowing the pigment to flow around.
Now it's time we got onto the Delphiniums themselves.
Treating the subject now as patches of color.
Putting on lovely, pure bits of color next door to each other and getting these clashes.
A few clear shapes.
That is pure ultramarine going on there over the original blush.
I'm dropping in a little bit of extra dark here.
Ultramarine with a little bit of Rosemeader in it to make it a little bit more dramatic.
And then letting that same color run down into the stems.
Although the stems are really actually green, because they're silhouetted against the feverish hue of flowers behind,
they're actually silhouetted so they can go in this nice dramatic way.
That Delphinium worries me a little bit. It looks a little harsh.
I might go back later and soften it, but we'll continue with the painting and then I'll judge that later.
I'm using here a flat brush, inch-wide, rather deliberately to prevent myself from getting too fussy.
So I want to make some nice crisp marks and somehow it forces you not to be quite so fiddly and fussy.
It's important to make the statements but not get it too busy.
It is actually very easily satisfied and the watercolor should be witty.
So you want to make the statements very simply.
There's a lovely leaf here and I do enjoy painting those.
Again, it's important to not only explain the shape, but the fact that it too is a three-dimensional subject
and swells and catches the light and gets a little bit into shadow.
So I'm watching for the various tones that will help me to describe this.
Quite a lot of light on this side of the leaf, which I shall just paint in now, keeping it fairly light and wet.
And then mixing a deeper color, I'm dropping in the extra dark.
And that helps immediately to show it as having a tilt and a change of direction.
That, in fact, that whole side now goes into shadow.
And so you've got light on one side and not on the other and you've got form.
These bits curl in a little bit and then finally come down to quite a sharp point at the base.
And on this side, those space shapes can be showed up a little bit more with whatever I'm going to put in behind.
All the time during a painting, one is having to watch the balance.
It's quite a good idea to walk away from it from time to time, especially if you feel you're losing your concentration.
Here I'm cutting out a few of the fever-few heads by deepening the tone behind and putting in the little yellow centers.
They help me to find where I am.
Selecting out what matters from all this jungle, one keeps having to watch for the essential leaves, the essential flowers, the essential stems.
And I'm going to enjoy cutting out a lovely delphinium leaf, which actually the color is from the original blush.
And I'm painting behind it and then washing it away.
And that means that the surface of the leaf is with very fresh paint and not painting inside a line.
I can leave it looking very, very fresh and restful in the painting.
Now this lovely red rose over here.
Again, I'm going to use cold and warm colors to help me to describe the form.
Now, although it's a red rose, I've started off with the cold pink, rose madder, pure.
I'm now putting in cadmium red with a little bit of yellow in it as well, so it's an orangey red going in.
And letting the whole area blend together.
That little bit of yellow is essential in the core of the plant, helping to describe the warm heart in the middle.
The outer petals just plain strong red, that's rose madder with cadmium red together.
I don't use any crimson lake or alizarin because I find it too dense and heavier color for this sort of thing.
Now I want to put in a little bit of this center color, madder brown or burnt amber with a little bit of red.
I put it in while it's damp so that it doesn't look too harsh.
And now it's time to really stand back from a painting and have a look at all the balances.
Do I want to soften anything? Do I want to sharpen anything up?
And in fact I have decided to go back to that delphinium and blend it together a little bit so that it wasn't quite as strident as it was earlier on.
So the attention is really going down to the roses with the delphiniums at the back as back line chorus.
Well I hope you've enjoyed sharing flower painting with me.
And just before we finish I'd like to illustrate one or two points on a couple of other examples which I've got here.
On this painting of a hogweed I just want to illustrate my point about not putting texture into the white area.
But just imagine if I did and I put all this sort of rumpley texture in there it would no longer read white.
So to explain it I'm using a little bit of shadow color here below.
And then when I put the background on by keeping this bumpy profile edge and wetting that and dropping the color in, again I'm describing the texture by that shape.
And then into this area here below I can put on all the sort of shadow color that I want, thereby leaving the white completely blank white paper.
This painting I did with no preliminary drawing, just straight on with the color.
It was a wet afternoon in the Pyrenees.
I went outside and picked these wild flowers, just threw them into a vase and then got going.
I didn't arrange any of them, they just fell like that.
And so I went in purely with the color, clovers, white marguerite, more clovers, wild geranium with a blue vase, a little blue jug rather behind,
and then the light coming through the jug to the vase and the little reflection on the table, a little bit of a frilly curtain and I even put in the raindrops on the window.
Well, in this film I want to talk about my way of painting with watercolors.
I'm a great believer in pure watercolors.
I'm a traditional painter, although I think we should always paint in a manner that suits oneself and not copy the traditional own masters.
But I do find I draw my inspiration from them.
Up on the walls here I've got colored postcards that I collect from time to time from museums of my favorite painter's work.
On the left here we've got Turner, Kotman, De Wint, Bonnington, wonderful stuff they do.
And on the right I've got at the top there's Edward Seager, Arnes-Bitt Brown, Roland Hilde, Constable, and the French painter Boudin with his beach scenes and his figures.
I find it extremely inspiring.
Now, a word about materials.
This paint box takes the large size of pan and incidentally I always replenish my pans from the tube.
I always top up paints before going out of doors.
One big advantage is that the paint is then absolutely fresh and there's nothing like paint straight out of a tube.
There's nothing worse than finding your paints have been unused for a week or two and have got hard.
And another trick worth knowing is that before you go painting, get the hot tap running,
get an old bristle hair brush, an old oil painter's brush like this,
and soften up each paint in turn with hot water and get them ready pliable so you can get them out of the pan easily with a good quality brush.
Well then, this is my color chart which is I have out when I'm teaching and people can see exactly what colors I'm using and that shows you clearly the range.
Brushes I use to save all, although they're very expensive, and also a very inexpensive brush, this one, a squirrel mop brush it's called,
soft hair and very useful for skies and trees and all sorts of things.
The more you can use a big one, the better.
The paper, I won't just say a word about paper because it's so important to have a good quality watercolor paper.
And although it's quite expensive, you've got to try and forget the cost of it and just go for your painting and don't worry about spoiling a sheet of paper.
A lot of people get inhibited by the fact that it's terribly expensive paper and they hardly dare use it.
Well, you must use good quality paper and you must forget the cost.
Another thing I'm very keen on is doing plenty of painting out of doors.
One can paint in the studio extremely well in good conditions, but one must draw one's inspiration from nature.
And I paint at least 75% of my work out of doors on the spot.
So we'll now go out of doors to find a simple subject, just a winter tree.
I always have a small sketchbook in my pocket when I'm out walking with the dog, and I often see a little subject I hadn't noticed before.
And it keeps your hand in, keeps your eye in for looking at subjects, and it improves your capacity for painting.
Now, when choosing a subject, one sometimes finds that there are alternative views, and I do a rough sketch of each view.
Other times you find a subject that seems to be absolutely right straight away.
But in this case, I want to show you the possibilities of alternative viewpoints.
First, I'm doing a sketch of this oak tree with the big hedge on the right-hand side of it, and not an awfully good view beyond.
So I think we'll try a second view.
Now, in this second view, you've got a view of the barn in the distance, which is a nice feature.
And again, the high hedge is on the right, but it's, I think, probably the best view.
But there is one more view I'll just have a quick look at.
Now, in this third view, the hedge is on the left, the tree in the middle, and the barn shows in the distance on the right.
Well, I won't waste time on this one. It's not so good. It's quite interesting, but you can't see much of the trunk of the oak tree.
So I decide to go for the middle view.
Having done a brief amount of drawing, first thing is to damp the paper, especially over the sky.
Now, when I say damp, I don't mean flood it with water, because, except for special cases where you want tremendous rain cloud effect,
you don't want the water to be running all over the place too much.
Having damped it, I leave dry areas, because today we've got a cloudy sky with blue sky showing.
So with that damped water, I can put pure ultramarine to start with, French ultramarine, leaving white areas for clouds.
And you'll notice my board is slightly tilted. It isn't absolutely flat, and it certainly isn't upright.
I want it at an angle of about 20 degrees, really, for this first wash of sky.
And also note, down towards the bottom of the horizon, the blue is very much fainter, and in fact I've introduced a little grey.
That's a mixture of cobalt blue and light red, down towards the horizon.
The first wash over the ground consists of raw sienna and a touch of ultramarine.
I'm now going to start painting the trunk of the tree with a mixture of burnt umber and French ultramarine.
That gives one a very nice dark brown.
You can vary the strength of that brown according to the proportion of those two colours you mix.
And now I've mixed an ivy colour, which is a fairly dark green, which we get with winds of blue, a little raw sienna and some burnt umber.
And you can vary that and get exactly the sort of tone of green you want.
Again, a fairly large brush to start with, and then a smaller brush as the ivy gets near the top.
Then we change to a much smaller brush for the main branches.
Get your main branches in first, and then with the point of the brush, or with a smaller brush, do the less important, thinner branches.
Always remember that tree branches, as they go upwards or towards the end, they get thinner and thinner.
And one fault a lot of people make is getting their branches much too thin.
You want to give them a bit of beef and a bit of strength towards where they start off on the trunk.
I've now mixed a grey browny colour, which is about right for tree twigs.
And I used burnt umber and winds of blue for this mixture.
And I'm using my big squirrel brush, which is ideal for flat washes, and use a fairly stiff mix.
By that I mean very little water with the brown mixture for the tree twig part, and drag the brush sideways over the paper.
For the high hedge, the same technique, same brush, and the same two colours, but rather more brown than blue.
And then for the darker passages, add a touch of Payne's Grey into that.
One wants to keep the whole hedge painting slightly damp all the time, so the different washes run into each other.
Scratching out with my pen knife, using a big blade to indicate light branches.
I'm now damping the paper on the area in the distance, and using a mixture of cobalt blue and light red to give a grey distant line of trees.
The paper I'm using for this painting is Wattman Heavyweight, I think it's 160 pound, which is a lovely white paper with a slightly rough texture.
Now I'm using a medium sized brush for the middle distance tree, and again using a mixture of burnt umber and winds of blue.
That gives us a nice light grey, grey brown.
The thinner branches with a small brush, burnt umber and Payne's Grey.
For the foreground field, I want a slightly rich green, I'm using cadmium yellow and winds of blue, with a touch of, only a touch of burnt umber, and it gives a lovely rich background green colour.
I'm using my old squirrel brush for this, putting the big wash on.
And while that wash is still damp, I'm putting in some darker green touches.
These represent the tufts of grass that one notices in the foreground, and gives the necessary texture to the field. Almost a neat burnt umber I'm putting in in one or two places.
You get the earth showing through these rough fields very often.
Now I'm using my pen knife again for indicating lighter bits of grass, which all helps the texture.
I would just like to mention the herniated deer behind this picture. As I said at the beginning, I wanted to give you an example of a really simple subject, and this is just one tree.
And notice the composition, the trees on the right hand side of the picture, and it's balanced, or rather counterbalanced, with that small tree on the left in the distance.
There's a certain amount of weight attached to the high hedge on the right, but this in turn is counterbalanced by the distance of the grey painting and the barn.
And then the foreground adds the final touch, a bit of strength and texture as it comes close to you.
One always thinks a picture out before you start. I always say to people, paint with your head and not your hand.
And that's a rather important thing to remember. Don't let your hand rush ahead in the excitement and find you haven't thought it out properly.
At this point, I'd like to give you an example of actually painting a snow picture.
I'll damp the sky, I'm going to make this very quick, but clear water, touch of ultramarine.
Almost went too low there, just remembering I got snow to come. And I'll dry that to save time.
A dark winter tree trunk coming up here.
Now, a bit of foliage.
Just deal with a little bit of distant tree group, in fact a little wood we'll have here.
And we'll put some bank to the river. Now, you often get steep little bits of bank in the snow showing the earth comes through.
Now I'm going to paint the water, just a darker tone, a very useful mix is Payne's Grey, a bit of Payne's Grey here, and some Raw Sienna.
Well, snow is beginning to appear now, we've got the river in.
Here we've got some bits sticking out from the bank.
Good bits of reed coming up.
Getting these distant trees reflecting.
This is rather vital work, huh?
You see these patches of dark show up with snow very valiantly. These couple of post cells are reflecting a bit.
It's only a rough sketch, but it gives you an idea of what fun snow can be.
Before we go on, I'd like to say a little bit about actual colour mixing. A lot of people have difficulty with this, especially for instance with green fields.
You've got what blues to mix with what greens and so on, and there's trees, there's water, there's skies, and so I think a little concentration on the actual mixing might be a help at this moment.
Take skies to start with. Our old friend Cabalt Blue is invaluable, and we'll put a little of that on, and very often that is all you've got to mix.
You don't mix it with anything, but when you apply it, you can graduate the wash. You put some water with it and make it go fainter as it gets to the horizon.
Don't forget that trick. Again on skies, take French Alfa Marine. This is something very much stronger and equally can be used all on its own, like this.
Now you see how vivid it is compared with Cabalt, but again the trick of fading it as you get lower towards the horizon. Now for cloudy skies, Alfa Marine and Burnt Umber is a very good mixture.
There's some Burnt Umber. That's too brown. We want some more Alfa Marine. And you eventually come up with a very nice grey.
Put a bit of grey on the paper. That's a fairly dark, thundery cloud sort of grey coming on there, but a little bit of water added, and it becomes a very nice pale grey.
Now if you put a little bit of Indian Red with it, it makes it rather a nice warm grey. And again, if we add some Raw Sienna, a bit of Raw Sienna, you sometimes get a touch of yellow in a grey sky.
It's rather sort of a thundery colour. A very good mixture for a distant line of trees is French Alfa Marine and Light Red.
Quite enough blue with it. But that is a very subtle sort of warm grey. And you can get the same sort of thing with Cabalt Blue and Light Red again.
It's an invariable mix of Cabalt Blue and Light Red. And it looks the same, but it has a subtle difference.
This is a very nice warm grey for a distant range of hills or gained trees. And so do remember, that's the very interesting and useful lot of mixes there.
A great many of my painting friends go wrong over grass. You mustn't be frightened, there's a marvellous range of greens.
Take Lemon Yellow. It's a very vivid yellow, this. And it only wants a touch of Windsor Blue to make a very bright green.
It's not the sort of green you want very often, but painting in Ireland you need it.
A slightly more mellow green is Cabmium Yellow, which is a lovely rich orangey yellow.
And then again, that mixed with Windsor Blue gives you a very pleasant green indeed.
If that was green grass and you were putting a shadow onto the grass from cloud shadows or even from a tree, you would do the same two colours here.
And then put a bit of Burnt Sienna with it. It turns it down rather nicely.
It'll give you a rather nice rich browny green. Or put a bit of Burnt Umber with it, go darker still, and Windsor Blue.
You see, it gives a rather nice darker green. Now I could put this on top of that green, and that gives a nice shadow colour to it.
I'll just throw in my pen knife for a minute, and don't forget this trick of scraping out tufts of grass.
Not too much spiky stuff. Use the side of the blade, you see, you get a broad bit. And that can be a very useful trick.
Fencing shrubs, that sort of thing. Use Burnt Umber, which is an invaluable colour for so many things.
Burnt Umber and a bit of Windsor Blue. It's a very nice dark, sort of green-y brown. You get a bit of a hedge colour.
Winter hedge, rather. To lighten it up, there's a little bit more green in it. A summer hedge.
And then, using a small brush, put some fencing in. Very dark brown. Burnt Umber and French Alchimereen.
Gives the colour you want. Now, buildings. Take buildings. Take a red roof. If this was in Kent, or something like that,
we'd probably have Burnt Sienna used by itself. It's a very good red colour. You don't often get light red, that's too red.
If this was Cotswolds, you would have a grey roof. For that, you mix three colours. You've got light red, Cabalt Blue.
You don't often have to mix three together. And a little Raw Sienna. Put it on that little bit of roof there.
It's a fairly grey. Of course, this can vary tremendously. Now, for stone walls, if they're stone walls, then it's those three colours again,
like the Cotswold roof. Raw Sienna, Cabalt Blue, makes it slightly green. Then a touch of light red.
And you end up with that sort of colour. If we let that dry, I'll show you what colour we mix for shadows.
For shadows on stonework, it's Cabalt Blue for a basic start. And then a little bit of Burnt Sienna.
Those two are very good. Under this barn, there's a shadow. Like that. Put that down here.
Run that shadow into the doorway of this barn. Of course, trees, you can use any number of colours,
depending whether it's spring, summer, winter. But a good autumn tree colour is Burnt Sienna, with a touch of Windsor Blue.
A group of trees, that is. And then you often get a darker, just up against it.
Or we can introduce a fairly green tree, which hasn't yet turned autumn.
Well, I hope those kind of mixes will be useful to you. I'm now going to take you out of doors,
and we're going to paint a summer scene, where we'll have summer trees, water, building,
and I think you're going to find it interesting. I'm sure you'll enjoy it.
Well now, this is a lovely subject, this old Cots Road water mill. You've really got everything.
I've drawn quite a lot to indicate the buildings, which is always a helpful guide,
because I've drawn a little bit more than I usually do, as regards to trees and so on, foreground,
just to help you understand what's happening. The first thing is to tackle the sky.
I like to damp with clear water the sky area, but I'll carry that clear water wash down over the buildings.
You'll notice this particularly. It's a very good day today, with sun, cloud, blue sky, and the sky is all part of the composition.
I'm now mixing a light grey with French ultramarine and burnt umber.
I'll put in a little raw sienna to give this yellow touch to the grey clouds,
which one usually has, if you look carefully on a cloudy day.
Now I'm using a watered down French ultramarine, not too strong, and now some darker grey using the burnt umber and ultramarine,
but a slightly stronger mixture. Everything is still damp and so it's...
the clouds have got nice soft edges, and I'm bringing the clouds down over the buildings,
but painting this grey over over buildings, but carefully leaving the areas that I shall eventually want to be dead white,
namely the dormer windows, because they will have white woodwork,
and getting the whole paper covered with this light warm yellowy grey,
because then you can judge the tone values of everything else.
I'm next tackling the walls of the building, fairly light colour.
In painting watercolours, one works from light to dark all the time, never put on your darks first.
You want to judge them near towards the end of the painting.
This is a mixture of raw sienna, cobalt blue, and a little light red, giving this warm, cotswoldy yellow stone colour.
Chimneys are the same stone colour, and this little shed in the foreground,
that was of course the old privy in the old days, before drainage.
I've opened up this view through here, you see it's a small gap there between that tree and that tree,
it's pretty small, I've widened it, I've brought that tree back a bit, and I've brought that one back,
because I want to get a bit of distance in there which gives some depth, 3D to the picture.
The roof colour is typical of cotswold stone roofs, very nice mellow brown yellow.
The roof of the little privy building in the centre is actually mellow red tiles.
The foreground grass is, I want to give this a first wash of cadmium yellow and winds of blue, which is a rich light green,
because later we'll have some dark shadow on it and give it a sunlight appearance.
I'm painting the distant background using French Art Marine and light red, which gives a very nice blue grey of distant trees.
The big tree behind the mill is important mainly because it acts as a very good foil for the building,
and in fact shows up to the building, brings it into relief, into sunny relief against this dark tree behind it,
and it is the most valuable part of the painting.
This is a thing Cotman was particularly expert at doing, placing his trees located very often behind buildings.
I'm using a fairly dry mixture, dragging the brush, you'll notice, over the rough paper and allowing the paper to breathe through,
because where I can see through the leaves, that's the sort of technique to develop for doing tree foliage.
Branches going with burnt umber and a little French Art Marine or winds of blue, something to darken the burnt umber,
and windows are virtually the same colour. Never do your windows black or bright blue, as some people think they should be,
because it's glass reflecting the sky, but they very seldom are reflecting the sky,
and a rich dark brown colour is much more effective for windows.
Our shadows on the building, a sort of wall colour again, but darker, you can start off with Raw Sienna and Cobalt Blue and Light Red,
but you can mix those colours fairly strongly, and it gives you, if you want to darken it, put a little burnt umber with it.
On the roofs, the shadow is slightly darker than on the walls,
but these shadows, of course, are a vital part of the picture, they are what bring it to light and give it the sunlight.
I'm using not quite the same green here, it's a yellower Willow Tree this, and it's Cadmium Yellow, Winds of Blue and a little Burnt Sienna,
but quite a lot of Cadmium Yellow I'm allowing to come through here, it gives a nice warm yellowy green.
The shrub in the centre here is mainly burnt umber, but a little Winds of Blue with it, it's a browny green,
and then the darker green tree slightly above it is burnt umber, Winds of Blue and a little Cadmium Yellow.
It's now time to put on the foreground shadow, this is really a cloud shadow, and it's exactly the same green as the original wash,
but just a tone or two darker, and that green is Cadmium Yellow, Winds of Blue and a little Burnt Umber,
and this broad cloud shadow in the foreground has the effect of giving the picture depth,
and as you go into the picture, I've done another cloud shadow up against the fence, a much narrower one,
which rarely gives the necessary perspective, and then into the dark foreground shadow I've added some darker green clumps of grass,
and even a bit of Burnt Sienna, almost neat, giving a little warmth to the green, a little red colour,
and then don't forget, if necessary, to put in a few light coloured grasses with the penknife, but one doesn't want to do too much of this,
it's just the odd bits gives a little texture and helps with perspective.
Water reflections are always fascinating, quite a challenge,
and the great thing to remember is that water is a great leveller of tone values,
the darks are inclined to look a little lighter and the lights a little darker, in other words the sky, which is the light colour,
is a little darker in the water, and the dark tree reflection can very often be a little lighter in tone.
One always wants to bear in mind with painting landscapes to simplify and leave out,
the great thing is to learn how much to leave out and how much to put in,
one can go on putting in and spoil a picture very easily indeed, and so you've got to exercise the necessary restraint all the time.
Well, I think that's enough as regards actual painting, and before we leave it I'd like to just summarise one or two points.
One tries to concentrate on the focal point, which is the central dark area just behind the fencing,
and you'll notice how simply the tree foliage are painted, the one on the left and the one, the yellowy one on the right,
just a few simple washes, no fussing and dabbing, and the emphasis is on that central dormer window and the roof shadow,
one roof against another roof, and there is a feeling of distance and that is helped with the foreground shadow,
centre door back, and I think you'll agree it makes a lovely composition, it's a nice subject anyway,
but one has to build it up carefully.
Well, we've had a little bit of architecture in the last picture of the old mill, but I'd like to go a little further into architecture,
I'll give you some more building details, and I've got here a very interesting subject of old knowledge.
I did this watercolour fairly recently.
So I'll do a bit of a detail of this gable first for you, and I'll start off with the roof, which is virtually burnt sienna
for these red Norfolk pen tiles.
This gable here is absolutely white and it stands out rather well, it's rendered, what we call rendered in plaster.
Now for the windows, which I'll do next, I want burnt umber and a little bit of Pays Grey.
Now I'll do one of these windows open so the bottom sash has been pushed up, gives an interest.
Something's standing on the windowsill inside, under the eaves we want yellowy grey.
Now the shadow on this white wall must be a much greyer shadow, probably be light red and cobalt.
And we've put it on in such a way that it gets the paper shade through a bit.
And there's a thing called reflected light that you get on shadows, and it means the darker part of the shadow down at the bottom end
will be a little bit darker.
Well then we want this same sort of shadow under here, where this gable is projecting.
You go right across it, you go deep into that window because it's recessed, and then deep into the door.
And there's a shadow down the side there, showing where the door is recessed in, you see.
Put in a tree over here, this little tree top is showing, it's quite a helpful little bit of a feature there.
Using cadmium yellow, winds of blue, and a bit of burnt umber.
Now here's a shadow of a tree coming across here.
On that wall, that justifies this green shadow on the grass, you see.
Now I'd like to mention bridges, which are also architectural subjects of a very different sort.
But they are very attractive subjects to paint.
With a bridge picture, one's usually got the sun shining on the bridge.
I mean you can do a bridge in silhouette, but in this occasion anyway, I've assumed the bridge is in sunlight.
And therefore the stone will look a lighter colour than certain other things.
And so it's a matter of painting darker features behind the bridge and showing it up.
And then finally at the end of the picture you'll put your lighter washes and shadows on the bridge itself, but leave that till the end.
And so I'm busy now painting in trees behind the bridge, using a lighter green for this group of trees.
A darker tree beside a lighter tree is always useful.
I'm painting the trees right down onto the bridge, now foreground, rocks and grass.
And now a light stone colour on the bridge itself, leaving those projecting embrasures on each side of the arch, catching the direct sun.
Leave them absolutely white.
A bit of stone texturing.
Be careful to restrain yourself and don't put too many stone joints in, otherwise the picture will become fussy.
Put shadows on those projecting buttresses, bring it to life a bit.
Put a little warm colour on the stonework, a little yellow.
And when it's now nearly finished, you can see how valuable that blue-grey mountain is behind, it sends it back into the distance.
Well, we've dealt with architectural detail, and now I'd like to take you out of doors and paint a very rural scene of a small barn and awesome trees, and a distant view.
I think you're going to enjoy this subject.
I'm just having a look at this small barn, and I've done a rough pencil sketch for possible painting, and I just want to look at another view further up.
Now, this view I've arrived at here is a little bit different from the other one, and the tree grouping is very much better.
I've got the wonderful coloured autumn chestnut tree, yellows and reds on the left.
The shadows are still good on the barn, and the view on the right fits in alright.
I think this is the view of the two, this is the best one to do.
I've done a minimal of drawing, just drawing the barn itself in, and a few brief lines indicating the trees, but they'll be mainly drawn in with the brush.
I'm damping the paper now, clear water, so as we can get a nice sky on.
There's a very interesting sky with light blue and very pale grey clouds and white clouds.
I don't want the sky to dominate at all.
It must be kept light, so as it recedes well behind all the features of the painting.
And now I've mixed a little grey, simple mixture of French alterine and burnt umber, give me a basic grey, and I'm blotting a bit there,
using a bit of blotting paper to make sure I have that side wall of the barn need to.
I want that to be a very light piece of stonework.
Sometimes if you paint over a thing by mistake you can lose a bit of blotting paper.
I always have a piece handy, which is very useful.
I carry this pale grey right down over the paper so you've got the thing covered.
Now the first rail wash is again burnt umber and French alterine, a warm light grey which will go over roof and walls.
There's some broken tiles on this old roof which I rather like, a few bits of daylight showing through the roof.
And you've got to paint round them rather carefully.
The next stage is to do the tiled roof wash, the same two colours but just a slightly stronger mix, giving a warm browny grey.
And here we can leave the broken tiles again with a slight wash.
I put in a bit of blue there to vary the colour of the tiles on the roof.
And I put some yellow in, you'll notice some raw sienna gives it an interesting variety of colour to that roof.
This is a stone wall up against the trees.
Now I'm painting the interior of the door opening, which is fairly dark, and that is burnt umber, and again it's just alterine.
I want to be careful, this is a rather vital feature of the whole painting, this dark door opening.
I'm leaving various rectangles inside that dark area, indicating boxes or posts or sticks.
Now the shadow under the eaves of the barn roof are important, and I'm using here a grey mixed with cobalt blue and light red.
And then just to warm it up, a very small amount of raw sienna.
This is a very important shadow, this shadow that shows the barn door projection into the building.
And I made this shadow darker at the bottom than it is at the top, you'll notice on purpose.
That's all part of the reflected light theory.
I'm going to put one or two roof tiles in to give a little texture to the roof.
And some stone jointing on the stone walling.
Now here we need restraint, we don't want to overdo this stone jointing, but an indication of stonework is always helpful.
Now with a large brush, my old squirrel brush, I'll start on the left hand trees using cadmium yellow and Winsor and Boobs.
Then we'll gradually work in the autumn colours, raw sienna and burnt sienna.
One really feels one's way with trees, you paint gradually, and bearing in mind the ultimate result.
This darker tree is helpful in many ways.
It shows up the lighter autumn tree on the left, it's also going to show up the barn building itself.
And it's the link between trees and building.
And here I turn the picture sideways in order to get my painting around the building fairly careful.
And now we've got to the point where branches can be indicated.
Now the foreground grass I'm putting in raw sienna and Winsor and Boo mixture, the dying grass is looking a little bit pale, late autumn grass colour.
I've splashed some paint in the sky, you can see by mistake.
Don't panic, just use your blotting paper, and if it hasn't quite come out, use a stiff brush, my old oil paint is bristle brush with clear water.
I'm rubbing it and then blot it again. I think we can get rid of it completely.
I'm now painting the grey background, the distance, is our old friend cabal blue and light red.
Now I'm wanting to put on the slightly stronger green, still a fairly light tone, the foreground grass.
Some yellowy grass in the distance there to bring the changes a bit.
And now one of the most important things of the whole painting is this tree shadow on the building.
I'm using cabal blue and Indian red, slightly purpley grey.
This is a fairly important piece of work to get the shadow in the right position.
Leave a few white bits where sunlight breaks through the leaves.
Then you can put some neat cabal blue into that wash, and also some neat light red.
Now the shadow of the trees on the grass, this really brings the thing to life.
Nice mixture of cadmium yellow and winds of blue with a touch of burnt sienna into it.
You see that rather nice rich green colour.
The general composition of this picture is rather satisfying, the barn here is left of centre.
The darkest dark is in the big door opening, which gives a punch, an emphasis, to the picture.
The next piece of dark is the green tree at the bottom of it, which helps bring out the shape of the barn and the wall really nicely.
And then the little small tree peeping round the corner of the barn is awfully helpful too.
The trees running out of the picture are a very nice thing to remember when you're composing a picture.
It helps the composition, and you'll notice how faint the sky is, it goes away beautifully into the distance.
Generally it's a very satisfying subject.
Before we finish, I would like to show you some of my paintings.
Now here we have got a view of the Honeister Pass in the Lake District.
The feature of this sort of picture is the atmosphere I'm trying to capture of a cloudy rainy day.
And the clouds are coming over the mountains, and there's a glimpse of pale sunlight on the grass.
Here is a bit of Australia. It well illustrates the strong light of Australia.
These are gum trees, showing marvellous shadows.
Thames Barges at Pin Mill in Suffolk. I carried the sky right down and through the water in one wash.
A view of Grange Bridge in Cumbria with the Derwent River.
I'm very fond of this picture myself because it's got the atmosphere of the Lake District.
There's plenty of depth in this picture and the tone values.
And you'll notice the dark, very dark tree just above the bridge behind the cottages.
That gives the sort of key to the whole tone value of the picture.
Here is a Cumbrian farm, typical farmhouse painted white.
It is a good example of dark trees behind buildings and how valuable they can be.
And you also note the very dark barn opening, which gives a crispness to the picture.
And then the foreground cloud shadows help give recession, as I've mentioned in previous pictures.
Here is a little corner of Venice painted on the spot in strong sunlight, as you can see.
And that is one of the features of this painting. It's the light, the shadows, the movement of the crowd,
and their stalls under the canvas, and the way one has treated the background buildings
in a very soft, distant way, which allows the bridge to stand out in clear relief.
Well, I do hope you have enjoyed this film.
I should like to feel that you are all going to go out and thoroughly enjoy yourselves painting out of doors as much as possible.
And do remember that you want to paint with your head and not your hand.
Thank you.