Fabio's materials
•Paper
Arches Aquarelle 300gsm cold-pressed watercolour paper, 58x48cm
•Brushes
Synthetic round brushes, sizes 6, 10 and 16; synthetic flat brushes, size 1/2”, 3/4” and 1”; synthetic rigger brush, size 2; fan brush, size 4
•Paints
Raw Sienna, Burnt Sienna, Burnt Umber, Permanent Alizarin Crimson, Rose Madder, Quinacridone Magenta, New Gamboge, Green Gold, Sap Green, Undersea Green, Manganese Blue Hue, Cobalt Blue, French Ultramarine, Ultramarine Violet and Shadow Violet, all Daniel Smith Extra Fine Water Colour
•Pencil
Derwent water soluble 2B sketching pencil
I visited Chédigny a couple of years ago, a small village known as “The City of Roses”. I love painting doors, balconies and windows with flowers, the play between light and shade attracts me so the wisteria subject was perfect for me. I took hundreds of photos and made a few sketches.
Wisteria is not an easy subject to paint in watercolour. If you suggest round shapes instead of drooping clusters, for example, it’s going to look like a climbing rose instead. Colour choice is important: the most well-known shades of wisteria are lavender, pink, violet and white but the pink is not so vibrant. Most of the time the flowers have a softer, pastel look. The leaf colour is also important – it’s not a dark green; it’s an intermediate shade, often with a yellow bias.
My approach to watercolour is intuitive and I like to paint loosely. I try to take the essence of the subject and interpret it so I don’t pay too much attention to the number of flowers in each cluster.
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Esta historia es de la edición Winter 2021 de Artists & Illustrators.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.
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Still life IN 3 HOURS
Former BP Portrait Award runner-up FELICIA FORTE guides you through a simple, structured approach to painting alla prima that tackles dark, average and light colours in turn
Movement in composition
Through an analysis of three masterworks, landscape painter and noted author MITCHELL ALBALA shows how you can animate landscape composition with movement
Shane Berkery
The Irish-Japanese artist talks to REBECCA BRADBURY about the innovative concepts and original colour combinations he brings to his figurative oil paintings from his Dublin garden studio
The Working Artist
Something old, something new... Our columnist LAURA BOSWELL has expert advice for balancing fresh ideas with completing half-finished work
Washes AND GLAZES
Art Academy’s ROB PEPPER introduces an in-depth guide to incorporating various techniques into your next masterpiece. Artwork by STAN MILLER, CHRIS ROBINSON and MICHELE ILLING
Hands
LAURA SMITH continues her new four-part series, which encourages you to draw elements of old master paintings, and this month’s focus is on capturing hands
Vincent van Gogh
To celebrate The Courtauld’s forthcoming landmark display of the troubled Dutch master’s self-portraits, STEVE PILL looks at the stories behind 10 of the most dramatic works on display
BRING THE drama
Join international watercolour maestro ALVARO CASTAGNET in London’s West End to paint a dramatic street scene
Serena Rowe
The Scottish painter tells STEVE PILL why time is precious, why emotional responses to colour are useful, and how she finds focus every day with the help of her studio wall
Bill Jacklin
Chatting over Zoom as he recovers from appendicitis, the Royal Academician tells STEVE PILL about classic scrapes in New York and his recent experiments with illustration