Artist of the Year 2025: Masterclass - Season 1 Episode 40 Improvising with Watercolour
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00:00Today's tutor, Charles Williams, won his heat on Portrait Artist of the Year in 2019
00:16with his sensitive portrait of actor Asa Butterfield.
00:20I think Charles was able to distill an essence of Asa, which, for me, actually lives in the
00:25hold of the head on that neck.
00:27There's a sort of fragility there that Asa really did have.
00:31At the semi-final, he produced a dramatic, full-length portrait of musical theatre legend
00:36Elaine Page.
00:37I love that sweeping drape, and it's sort of got an impressionist feel about it, hasn't
00:44it?
00:45Yes.
00:46Beautiful.
00:47Rather than working from life, Charles often creates compositions based on his childhood
00:52artistic influences, which he will demonstrate in today's Masterclass, Improvising with Watercolour.
01:22Today, I'm looking at watercolour as a way of improvising images.
01:29You're not tied into sources, you're not working from photographs or from drawings, but rather
01:35inventing things from your imagination.
01:38I've got watercolour paper, always important to use watercolour paper because it's strong
01:44enough to stand up to the rigours of painting.
01:46I've got a nice lot of clean, fresh water, and of course I've got my paints and my brushes.
01:55Now I'm using three different pieces of paper.
01:58One of the things about watercolour is it takes a long time to dry, and I'm going to
02:02use this to my advantage, as you'll see, because what's going to happen is I'm going to make
02:06an image on each different piece of paper, and I'm going to develop each one as it goes
02:12along.
02:13So, I'm going to start out with this one.
02:19If you're going to paint from the imagination, you will have a whole array of different things
02:23going on in your mind, but it's kind of choosing and it's kind of imagining which one is going
02:29to work.
02:30This is a sort of random way of approaching painting, where you make marks and you look
02:36at the marks and you try and see what the image might be.
02:43So, that's going to be my first mark.
02:55I'm going to paint it and then just put it aside.
02:58I'll start with this one.
03:01A certain amount of chaos is inevitable in doing this, and probably a good thing.
03:08You need to sort of make mistakes and have second thoughts.
03:13I'm going to change the colour here.
03:25Another thing you can do is use your loo paper to take marks away.
03:33But I'm just really, just really applying the paint in a random fashion.
03:43I'm thinking, in this painting, I'm thinking this shape here seems to be some form of figure
04:06and then this behind could be a sky.
04:09So, I'm just going to see if I can make that work.
04:16Now this is, this paint, it's watercolour in a tube.
04:21That's all it is.
04:22There's nothing special about it except it is a particularly bright, particularly light
04:31and rather opaque blue, but I'm using it quite thinly and I'm using it, as you can see, on
04:37a coloured paper.
04:40So that is going to make its own problem or its own excitement, just depending on how
04:49you see things.
04:58I'm going to put that to one side now and let that dry while I move on to another one.
05:07This is a very old technique, actually, and it might seem quite strange, but it's a very
05:19old technique.
05:20Leonardo da Vinci writes about this technique.
05:24And then a couple of hundred years later, the great Anglo-Russian painter Alexander
05:30Cousins wrote a whole book on how to extemporise landscape by doing exactly this.
05:49I sometimes use this technique as a way of working out or developing images for a sort
05:54of larger painting that I can work on in oil paints, you know, on a much bigger scale.
06:00Equally, I find it a really good way of reanimating what I'm up to, rethinking about what my paintings
06:07might be.
06:08Now, I'm going to add some more colour to this, but it's going to be much thicker and
06:14drier.
06:15So I'm going to find one of my thicker brushes and I'm going to apply what is called dry
06:27brush technique, but I don't really like that, I don't really like the terminology.
06:34It just seems to me, this is when I put dry paint in.
06:38The reason I'm doing this is I sort of think I've got an image coming here and I'm hoping
06:43it's going to work.
06:44One of the great things about doing this is you've got three things on the go all the
06:49time.
06:50So if I just get one out of it, if just one of them has an image that I like, then great,
06:59I've won.
07:01Maybe I'll have all three, maybe all three will come together, I don't know.
07:05But just one is a gift, it doesn't matter, it's just good.
07:09What I'm doing with the dry brush is I'm almost giving you edges of things, but it's so loose
07:16and so broad that it serves more to hint at than to define things clearly.
07:23I just sort of think I see somebody playing a trumpet, I think I do, and I think there's
07:31a head there.
07:33So he's sort of turning away, we'll just have to see.
07:37Right I'm going to leave this at this point because it is sort of suggested there's something
07:42coming out, there's something there, and there's a great deal more than is over here.
07:47Also, some of these paintings have sort of dried off a bit more, so I can go over to
07:51use these and think about what might be going on there.
08:05I'm just seeing whether putting this yellow on, which I haven't done any yet so far, just
08:12seeing whether that helps the image.
08:14I'm not sure about this painting, not sure where this one's going.
08:20Sometimes it's worth sort of pushing away at it and really trying to achieve something
08:25and then sometimes it's worth just putting it to one side and letting it dry and maybe
08:30something will occur to you later on.
08:34So back on to number three now.
08:37The language that I use in painting, which is the language that all, well most figurative
08:48painters use, is that of dark and light.
08:51You have colour as well, but light and dark show how form is made, show how shapes are made.
08:58Every time I take something off I make it lighter, every time I put something on I make
09:01it darker.
09:03In this case, I'm sort of seeing a figure here and I'm seeing the light coming from
09:09that side.
09:10It's only very vague at the moment, but that's why I'm taking stuff off here, but again I'm
09:16not being terribly precise about it.
09:19I don't want my options to be closed down too quickly and what I'm going to do now is
09:23I'm going to introduce a different element, which is this sort of homemade paint that
09:32I have.
09:34Watercolour is made out of pigment, which is raw colour dug from the earth or made in
09:41a laboratory.
09:43It's raw colour mixed with a thing called gum arabic.
09:48What gum arabic does is it holds the pigment together so that when it's diluted in water
09:55and then put on the paper, the gum arabic just about holds the surface of the paint
10:01together as it sits on the paper.
10:04So it's raw and dry and looks terrible and then I scratch into it with a very strong
10:12brush.
10:13And then just sort of dab it over.
10:26I think there's a monkey in here, but I'm not really sure.
10:29Okay, something's happening there and I'm going to put that to one side before it overdoes
10:35itself.
10:36Maybe I should work on this one.
10:51Maybe a horse is emerging here, maybe I've got the side of a horse straight on and maybe
10:58for once, this is quite rare with my work, for once the legs are kind of going off the
11:04bottom of the page rather than there being something for it to sort of stand on.
11:08I don't know.
11:09I just have to see how it, see what comes out.
11:14Right, I'm going to go back to this painting, which I think is a somebody playing the trumpet.
11:29That's actually a first for me and what I'm thinking now is this painting and the other
11:35two paintings, they're all almost in a similar place.
11:39They're all almost at the same point of resolution.
11:43The image that's emerged is just coming out.
11:46Each one is just about there, but not entirely and obviously needs a lot more sort of work.
11:53So I'm going to carry on with this trumpet player.
12:02One thing to point out here is that I'm using quite thick brushes and I'm not going for
12:08detail at all at this point.
12:11It's a really good idea not to do that.
12:14You don't want to get bogged down in detail because if you do that, you'll slow down your
12:18invention.
12:20You'll slow down your ability to see what the shapes might be telling you.
12:26So now I'm going to use, I've just, with no forethought whatsoever, and it may be completely
12:47the stupidest, wrongest thing to do, I've just decided to do this background in this
12:55alizarin red.
12:57May cause me trouble, it may not.
13:12What's happened at this point is that I've noticed a shape which I think could make the
13:20horse's head and I've taken my dry brush and I've pushed it through just at a point
13:27where two tones meet, so a dark bit and a light bit.
13:31And coupled with the fact that I've kind of used a brownie kind of dry paint, which sort
13:39of echoes or sort of makes you think about what horse kind of, certain colours of horses
13:45are, it's suddenly given an idea of how that, how the light would be operating on that particular
13:52form.
13:53It's an interesting moment because it's a moment where I think, well, okay, this is
13:58definitely what that form is going to be, but now I have to work out how I take it further,
14:07how I make that form more convincing, how I make it more three dimensional.
14:12I'm going to let that dry for a bit and probably carry on with the trumpet playing now.
14:20At this point, I'm making smaller and smaller decisions because I've sort of, I've sort
14:27of got what the painting is about.
14:32I don't have to make large things anymore, but what I'm doing is I'm finessing, I'm sort
14:38of, I'm just sort of coaxing it out more and more exact.
14:51So at this point, I'm really wanting to make the trumpet precise and exact.
14:56I want you to know what he's, what kind of, what kind of instrument he's blowing on.
15:01So I'm using this really bright yellow to build up the clash of the trumpet.
15:08Now at this point, I'd be quite happy to stop.
15:13I think it's sort of becoming something that I can recognise.
15:16It's becoming an image and it's certainly something that I've never done before.
15:20So for me, it's quite exciting.
15:23It's a new image.
15:24I might maybe put in another painting or an image or on itself, it might stand as a
15:32finished painting.
15:35But I think part of what I've been trying to do today is already quite clear in this
15:41that an image has emerged from my imagination.
15:47I've improvised some shapes and this figure has come out of it.
15:54It's sort of up to me now and it would be up to you if you were doing this kind of thing,
15:58how much further you want to take it, how much more you want to resolve it.
16:04But for the moment, I'm going to put that to one side and say, that's done.
16:10And I'm going to go back to my horse painting.
16:14I'm going to try and define it, try and make it work in a more sort of detailed way, rules
16:21looking for what I think might be dark, what I think might be light.
16:25And I'm just using a very, very neutral, dark colour to do that.
16:33So I think I'm going to leave this one just for a while, let it dry and turn my attention
16:41to my third painting, which I'm not really quite sure how it's going to go.
16:47And it's sort of really got to more of a sort of desperate point.
16:50I don't quite know how I'm going to sort this painting out.
16:55One of the things you can do when you're desperate at this point is to use opaque paint.
17:02The reason you use opaque paint is it's direct.
17:05You can just blob it on and it will stay on the surface.
17:10This is gouache, which really is the same as watercolour, only it has something called
17:17whiting added to it.
17:19One of the problems with it is that you can't really get it off as quickly as you can watercolour paint.
17:24So you've got to be very sure about where it's going to go.
17:27Now I think what I'm seeing here is a monkey sitting down.
17:30I think so.
17:31And I'm going to see if I can bring it out a bit more precise.
17:37Now I've got to think very carefully about where the paint goes.
17:43So I think around here, just dob it on.
17:48And these blobs are just showing on this, this is the top of the head I think, and they're
17:53just showing where the lightest bits are.
17:56Just go to there, I'm hoping that's going to work.
18:04And then I think I might run, see if I can make the top of a finger there.
18:24There's a lot more definition to achieve with this creature.
18:30But at the moment I'm happy to leave it like that.
18:33I'm going to put that to one side.
18:35I'm just going to do a little bit on this trumpet player.
18:43Using more opaque paint, more gouache, I just want to get in one or two little details.
18:54Just to bring out the figure.
19:04I think I'll say that's finished for now.
19:15Just to have another look at the horse painting.
19:23So at the moment this painting is fairly, it's still fairly ambiguous.
19:29It's still fairly loose and open.
19:32It's still not quite fully defined.
19:34And I'm just wondering if I could, just wondering if I could put his eyes in and see whether
19:40that helps.
19:47I kind of like that almost sort of rather disturbing look that the horse is giving me.
19:58I kind of welcome that.
20:01It's always a balance between what goes on in your mind and what goes on in the rest
20:05of the world.
20:06It's got to be some kind of correspondence, but you know, how much is up to you, I think.
20:12I'm excited by this painting.
20:16There's something sort of mysterious about it, which I'm beginning to really enjoy.
20:32Well, I hope you can see that with watercolour, you are actually free to invent as much as
20:38you like.
20:39I think it's a good idea to start out with marks and with improvisation and then only
20:44later on to bring in resources and sort of practical sources.
20:50But it really is, after all, a question of artistic expression.
20:54It's really up to you what you want to paint.
20:57And watercolour will allow you to do it.
21:03If you'd like to find out more about these masterclasses, go to our website skyartsartistsoftheyear.tv.