This week’s Love/Hate is all about watercolour paintings. I don’t know about you, but when I hear the word watercolour I immediately conjure up images of kittens playing with balls of wool and puppies chasing their tales.
While this is all fine, and some (certainly not all) of the artists painting this kind of thing have a lot of talent, my god is it boring. Where’s the life? The vivacity? The texture? I get it, not everyone wants a painting to make them feel something, some people just want a cute picture of cats… Yawn.
For me, a painting must go a little further than that, showing thought and insight and showing the subject in a different light. This is when watercolours shine, because watercolours are not about what you paint, they are about what you don’t paint, the negative space that you leave around the subject is just as important as the subject itself.
Here is a round-up of some great examples of how I think watercolours should be used, some are pure, full-on watercolour and others are mixed media. Let me know what you think.
Related
