Artist: Pam Ayres - Hasting College Hastings, NE

Winslow Homer - Graphite, gouache watercolor on paper

Winslow Homer (1836–1910)
Windy Day, Cullercoats, 1881
Graphite and gouache on tan laid paper, 113⁄16 x 20¼ inches
Bequest of Charles Shipman Payson, 1988.55.15

Homer’s sense of bravado, previously restrained in his works by his fondness for irony, is on full display in Windy Day, Cullercoats. The product of the artist’s eighteen-month stay on the North Sea, drawings such as this reflect Homer’s search for authentic experience in everyday life. Impressed by the hearty women of this fishing village in the northeast of England, time and again he captured the strength and capability of these archetypes of traditional female labor. Homer sketched this model from a low angle, creating a dramatic sense of perspective that renders the figure heroic.




















Homer’s refined eye can be seen in how he delineates the arch of the woman’s back, leaning away from the wind just as the mast of the vessel strains against the sail. Her billowing apron demonstrates the force of nature buffeting the fleet heading to sea in the background. With sleeves rolled up and market basket at the hip, Homer’s figure is muscular, capable, and self-contained in the face of a rugged and challenging environment. Homer’s technical genius is revealed not only in his forceful draftsmanship but also in his exquisite use of negative space.

Winslow Homer (1836–1910)

Two Men in a Canoe, 1895
Watercolor on gray laid paper, 14 x 20 inches
Bequest of Charles Shipman Payson, 1988.55.12

Homer’s ability to depict quiescence rivaled his skill at capturing the raw force of nature. Painted on one of Homer’s late visits to Canada, Two Men in a Canoe is a study in subtlety and technique. The artist employs the paper itself to color both water and sky, splitting earth and heaven with deft, minimal brush strokes to create the shore out of misty wash. The canoe’s silent wake and the whip of the fishing line—both rendered in pure white gouache—testify to Homer’s ability to produce watercolors that all but make sound.

Traveling Watercolor Journals By Mary Ann Boysen

Those of you who know - journal, sketch or source book it. This artist has some very nice examples of her books on line at http://www.watercolor-painting-tips.com/watercolor-journals.html

Francis Towne watercolor landscapes

Lake Albano with Castel Gandolfo (July 1781, "morning light from the left hand"

The Source of the Aveiron, Mont Blanc in the background. 1781

Lake Albano, the sunrise in the Rocca del Papa. 1781

Francis Towne (1739-1816) began his artistic career as a coach painter. He later moved on to landscape painting. His watercolours are very simple but striking. He painted this watercolour in Switzerland, where he stayed on his return to England after a trip to Italy.

According to Harold Barkley" Francis Towne was probably the most original artist working in the water-colour medium in the 18th century. He regarded himself, nevertheless, as primarily a landscape painter in oil and deeply resented a dismissive contemporary description of himself as 'a provincial drawing-master'. His water-colours were virtually unknown for a century after his death, most having remained with him until bequeathed to friends and thus remaining in private collections, apart from his Italian drawings which - as he desired - were given to the British Museum.

Although trained in London with his life-long friend William Pars, his roots lay in Devonshire and he spent the major part of his working life in Exeter, although he exhibited regularly in London and frequently spent long periods there. He was apparently a diffident and unworldly man who was satisfied to cultivate his Devonshire friends and patrons.

It seems likely that he originally used water-colour as an aid in the development of his oil compositions, but by 1777 he was using the medium characteristically, albeit still somewhat tentatively, to record impressions of a tour in Wales. The turning-point of his career as a water-colourist came in 1780, when he paid a visit to his friend Pars in Rome and in the course of his stay there considerably developed his technique. The present drawing belongs to the remarkable series of majestic studies of Alpine scenery made by Towne on his journey home through Switzerland in September 1781. Towne's view owes nothing to the 'Gothick' romanticism of Horace Walpole and his friends thirty years earlier.
He banishes all extraneous 'picturesque' elements such as wayside shrines and ruined bridges. His vision is of the greatest severity and his presentation austere in the extreme. He achieves the expression of his fascination with the geometry of Nature by the most economical means, reducing everything to the simplest terms and achieving a noble monumentality by his skillful arrangement and lighting of inter-reacting planes. This subject reveals Towne's preoccupation with outline and pattern in the highest degree as well as his subtle use of delicate washes to achieve his desired ends.

In due course, with the advent of the vision of Cézanne and of the Cubists a century after his death, Towne’s vision became more widely comprehensible and there is now due appreciation of the originality of his contribution.