Harry Clarke Watercolour Masters

Harry Clarke is knon for his work on stained glass but he has extraordinary work on illustration. We could say that he's not only from the golden age but has also of pre-raphealite influence from the Victorian Age.

He has a similar approach as Aubrey Beardsley. Atlhough I find his work more minute and intricate. What makes it similar somehow is the figure drawings. The facial aspects are enlongated and the figures are tall and scrawny. Another mark is it being mostly black and white.

But he does have the odd work in colour. This particular one is rare and back from the 1920's and it's from a series illustrating Hans Christian Andersern's FairyTales. Wow, absolutely astonishing.

Harry Clark is of Irish origin and son of Joshua Clarke. He was born in 1889 and died 1930. He did other works, such as illustrated the Edgar Alan Poe's Tales of Mystery and Imagination and much more. All of are breath taking. If you're looking for his work on stained glass, then you should hop over to Ireland and go past The Honan Chapel on the University Grounds of Cork.

Ivan Bilibin

Ivan Bilibin was an artist that came from Russia. This means that his Art is Slavic.
He is also among my favorite illustrators.

When he traveled to the Northen part of Russia, he became acquanted with the Slavic folklore and the wooden architecture from those parts of the country.

His contribution to Russian Fairy Tales was original. He also went passed Cairo and Alexandia, only briefly, but came to settle in Paris around 1925.

He illustrated stories such as the Tale of the Golden Cockerel, Baba Yaga, Island Buyan. The Redfirebird is particularly beautiful. He was born in St.Petersburg, 1867 and died during the Leningrad Siege in 1942.

Kay Nielsen

Kay Nielsen is an artist from the late 19th century and also one of the names to be on the list of favorite illustrators. His origins are from Denmark and so his ilustrations have to do with Scandinavian Fairy Tales.

His most notorious is East of The Sun and West of The Moon, a norwegian tale that was introduced into literature by Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe. These guys were a bit like the Grimm Brothers who collected tales from folklore and storytellers. Andrew Lang, another folklorist, also included this in his Blue Book of Fairy Tales.

But we're here to talk about Kay Nielsen. Actually, more to share one of his paintings with you. He also illustrated fairy tales such as Hans Christian Andersen and the Grimm Fairy Tales. So here you have this beautiful image of one of my favorite illustrators. A Kay Nielsen illustration of East of the Sun and West of the Moon. Enjoy

Watercolor Paintings

Have a look at this one by Edmund Dulac from a Fairy Tale

There's a great variety of watercolor paintings. And if one looks carefully, we can find a wide variety of paintings that look quite apart and different from each other. Let's take a simple theme. A watercolored flower. These can be done with blunt thrusts of the brush and you can easily produce a good looking flower.

But what about those that really look real. Often, it's not only about the watercoloring technique but the time you spend with it. If you keep layering very light coats of watercolor paint. These keep overlappind and create depth and a stronger colour. That's why some watercolor paintings are better than others.

Just take a little longer and I'm sure you'll be impressed with the watercolor paintings you produce. Give it a go and put on some music while you're painting.

Watercolor Tips 5

A great technique to use watercolor, is using stencils or even objects as stencils. Take a simple leaf and place it on the paper. Then grab a spunge a water down the colors on a tray. One color at a time. Soak up the spunge and press it around the edges of the leaf.

It's fun. The watercolor shouldn't be too soggy. Just enough to leave the impression on it and as you're wartecoloring, you can also use different tones to color the inside. It's a rather childish effect but used with care and in the right place you can have a fabulous result.

If you're just interested in doing something simple, than a greeting card might be a good idea. Enjoy

Watercolour Tips 4

After some intense exploration of this medium, one refines the technique and learns from experience.

But besides using this painting technique, we can also add other techniques and apply them onto it. The more obvious would be to add colouring pencils. This conveys richness and particularly if you highlight details.

A very good way to put this in action is actually when incorporating patterns. It's a great way to get enough contrast but naturally blending in with the picture. Another good idea is to use it over one saturated colour and bring out tonal grading. The effect is astounding and work really well with bright colours.

However, these should be worked more towards the end. If you're able to control your watercolours relatively well, then it should not be a problem.

Next week we'll talk about inking over watercolors. Just check out this gorgeous painting of Arthur Rackham. Have fun.

Watercolour Tips III

Not all water colour paintings need to be precise. You can create fabulous results with a more lose aproach. What you have to watch out for, is to avoid layering different colours endlessly. It loses the effect and it may result in loss of brightness.

The colours tend to dull when mixed too often. What makes it brighter is the fact that you keep layering the colours in proximity. For example, if you painting cold colours then blues could be mixed to give it an enriched texture. If you're to apply a different colour, then it can it either move towards green or purple.

But mixing green and purple can be more difficult and this should be experimented on the side before laying the watercolour onto the final paper. If it still seems difficult or odd, try colour harmonies.

Edmund Dulac

What I find interesting about Edmund Dulac is that he arrived toLondon a little bit later, as the color seperation was refined, and didn't struggle with that problem. This is early 20th century.


And he worked for the same publishers as Arthur Rackham, Hodder and Stoughton, but he made use of his paintings at an Art gallery in Leicester, before selling the reproduction rights to H&S.


This is an illustration of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and just one of many examples of how rich his colours were.

School Art Project

After getting my F10's to do some research, each one read a couple of H.C.Andersen's fairy tales and managed to choose a couple idea/sentences.

Now I was really amazed, as these teenagers and I put up a blog, and the results have been quite unexpected. Not all of them have put up their Frank Miller experiments but their are a few, and looking good.

The Final piece is a couple of weeks away. But the stories that can be found there are tales such as, The Little Mermaid, The Metal Pig, The Emporor's New Clothes, The Wicked Prince and other Andersen Tales. Just check the link of wicked-art-work.

Watercolour Masters I

The true masters from the past certainly came from painting techniques in China and Japan. I’ve seen some quite fabulous.

But there are many paintings that appeal to me. This first time I got seriously interested in watercolour, was when I saw some of Arthur Rackham’s paintings of Alice in Wonderland, written by Lewis Carroll.

These illustrations, from 1907, are gorgeous. The one with Alice and The Pack of Cards caught my eye, and from then onwards I haven’t stopped learning and getting to know some brilliant artists from the Golden Age of Illustration.

Watercolour Tips II

Sketching is great to plan ahead. If you don’t want those pencil marks to come through, then practice the composition. Get the idea into your head before. A rough drawing can give you the outlines and eliminate some difficulties.

You can always light line the final with a pencil, but if you can manage without it, then super. If not, then it shouldn’t be a problem. I personally use pencil in my watercolours but the end result is meant to be a bit different.

I like introducing different media to create different textures and contrast. But I have done it without pencil and it really is unique. You have to be precise, not just for colour choice and mixing through layers, but also where you put it down on paper.

Watercolour Tips I

Watercolour is great for painting but it does require a bit of experimentation before you get the hang of it. And to really get control over it is quite challenging and very demanding.

Also known as aquarelle in French, watercolours tend to be worked from the palette but you can often work sometimes directly from the paints. Slowly, we coat the paper with layers of colour. Unfortunately, the rule says that one should work from light colours to dark.

This has a reason to be. If we blurt a dark colour in the wrong spot, there’s really little or no way around it.

We can never forget the water cup as there’s nothing worse than a mucky paint tray. So keep those brushes clean.

H.C.Andersen Fairy Tales in Frank Miller style

Since I teach a class of F10’s, I decided to put them up for a challenge. The idea isn’t new, I had already done this a couple of years ago, and it came out quite well.

At the time, when it was done, the students had only one story, entitled The Wicked Prince by Hans Christian Andersen. The Tale is about a Mighty Prince that ends up defying the church and God himself.

There’s a scene where the prince builds a ship with canons and it’s risen in to the sky pulled by eagles to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. They fire upon an angel but the bullets rebound and the angel lets a drop of blood fall on the ship.

This drags down the ship as the blood is of hundreds of weights. The prince almost perished in the event but was intent to defy the Lord.

The end of the tale is quite humorous and the Prince is defeated. In this Art project, they get to choose a story, and select a description that may visually appeal to them for their Interpretational study.

This project will have an outcome in about six weeks or so. Let’s see what happens

Watercolours for Xmas

Well, I've just got my new set of watercolours and painting away. I've gotten into Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales and I find some of the tales very appealing to my visual imagination.

Right now I'm running around The Snow Queen and there was a particular part of the story that caught my attention.

To sum it up, it's about little Gerta trying to find Kay who was taken away by the snow queen. and there is a chapter where she meets the Robber Girl. She's a rough image and runs a knife along a reindeer's neck to tickle it.

Meanwhile Gerta tell the Robber Girl about how she went out into the world looking for Kay. And despite her forcefully wanting Gerta as her playmate, she decides to give her the reindeer. Kind of reminds me how some people look hard on the outside and happen to be a heart of gold in the end.

So, I sketched the drawing and I've started coating it with the first layers of watercolour. It's starting to show and as soon as it's done I'll put it up.