Turner’s method
Andrée asked “Oh wow, how did Turner accomplish this? What do you think?”
Yes, that watercolour is Turner at his best, eh!
Looks like he started by washing in the sky and undertone for the water. He almost certainly did the background next, perhaps with a cursory drawing to guide him. I think he added warm notes in the water area for reflections and for the boat as well, although this could equally have been done later. The water went in wet-on-dry with care, so as not to cover the area entirely, with a large brush, not too saturated and probably held on its side, skipping over the surface (I do this a lot). Finally, he quickly dropped in the boats, wet, on the drying page.
Apparently, Turner would sometimes line up a few watercolour sheets and each would get doused in a bucket of water and thrown on the floor wet, the master then working on each in turn as they got to the right degree of dryness!
Recent article on Turner: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2025/feb/07/turner-in-light-and-shade-review-whitworth-manchester?
Plein-air Sketching and Painting
The plein-air season is finally here and Ottawa-Gatineau is a great place to meet up with other painters:
- Facebook: “Ottawa Plein Air Painters” (OPAP), plus “Plein Air Ottawa-Gatineau area”;
- Meetup: an “Ottawa Plein Air Painting Group” was active last year;
- Many art clubs have informal plein-air groups.
Let us know should you know of any other groups and plein-air events and we’ll be sure to circulate the info!
Portraits in the news (again)
To date, I’ve not had any complaints about portraits that I’ve completed, however, intentionally or not, some artists do:
Artist of ‘truly the worst’ Trump portrait says her career is threatened https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2025/apr/06/artist-of-truly-the-worst-donald-trump-portrait-says-her-career-is-threatened-sarah-a-boardman?CMP=share_btn_url
I’m reminded of the Gina Rinehart kerfuffle from last year: https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/16/style/gina-rinehart-namatjira-portrait-australia-intl-scli/index.html
I also well remember the splash Lucien Freud’s portrait of the queen made: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/1723071.stm
Churchill disliked this portrait by Walter Sickart (which I think is rather good actually) and gave it away soon after it had been presented: https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw01298/Winston-Churchill
Ten more unflattering portraits:
The 10 Most Unflattering Portraits Ever Made and the Stories Behind Them
and lastly:
Researchers solve the mystery of makeup appearing ashy or grey on darker skin: https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2025/mar/26/researchers-solve-mystery-of-makeup-appearing-ashy-or-grey-on-darker-skin?CMP=share_btn_url
The solution? ……Ultramarine Blue! ……I could have told them that!
Break-a-Brush!
David & France