• Home
  • About
  • My Latest Work
  • Moray Gallery One
  • Moray Gallery Two
  • The Coastline Gallery
  • Our Prints
    • Landscape Prints
    • Aviation Prints
  • The Aviation Gallery
  • The Highlands Gallery
  • Inspirations One
  • Inspirations Two
  • Rob's Blog
  • Buying Our Work
  • What You Get
  • Contact Us
  • Testimonials
Rob Wigham Watercolours

Body Colour

14/4/2016

0 Comments

 
Picture


​This is 'Storm Break', watercolour and gouache, and represents my second experiment in 'body colour'. Body colour was popular in watercolour back in Turner's day, when it became a mainstream movement. It stemmed from the introduction of Chinese White, which is a very bright and opaque medium which could be mixed with watercolour to provide opacity. At its most extreme, it was used by watercolourists to both provide a highly reflective underpainted surface, and as body colour within the watercolours, which together could result in a watercolour which had more the appearance of an oil painting than a watercolour.
Here, I've simply used permanent white gouache to strengthen some of the colour in the storm clouds, and to join the white colour of the cloud edges, which is a mixture of unpainted white paper and touches of gouache, with the transparent watercolour of the cloud darks. By doing so, I have tried to model the clouds lights, darks and shapes in a little more detail than I could achieve with a simple watercolour wash. I rather like the effect! The aircraft and the water have been painted conventionally for watercolour, with some of the wave crests highlighted with gouache to match the cloud treatment.
The use of body colour and gouache is frowned upon by some watercolourists who consider that all watercolours should be transparent. I love watercolours of all sorts and transparent watercolours can be beautiful. However, the likes of Turner showed that there was no need to restrict ourselves, as artists, in the media we use. In this painting, I wanted these effects, so I used some body colour. As long as the results are pleasing and permanent so that the overall painting is as durable as the permanent watercolour, I really see no reason to be restrictive. There are plenty of rules in this world - so I'm delighted that there are no rules in art!
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    A professional artist living and working in the beautiful north of Scotland. My work is realistic and quite traditional, though strongly interpretational in nature. My inspiration is the beauty of Nature, and the wonderful colours and moods she shows everywhere.

    Archives

    February 2018
    December 2017
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly
✕