{"id":1397423,"date":"2019-07-03T14:43:56","date_gmt":"2019-07-03T13:43:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jacksonsart.com\/blog\/?p=1397423"},"modified":"2021-02-18T15:08:17","modified_gmt":"2021-02-18T15:08:17","slug":"jane-blundell-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jacksonsart.com\/blog\/2019\/07\/03\/jane-blundell-interview\/","title":{"rendered":"Jane Blundell: The Allure of Watercolour"},"content":{"rendered":"

Many watercolourists will know of Jane Blundell because of her blog<\/a>, that provides expert information on watercolours, and from her intricate wash and ink paintings. We caught up with Jane to find out how she got into watercolour, her tips for creating mixes and swatches, and how she “looks” when sketching.<\/big><\/p>\n

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Red Cadenza<\/em>, Jane Blundell<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Tegen: Could you tell us a little bit about your artistic background\/education? <\/strong><\/p>\n

Jane: I\u2019ve drawn and painted since I was a child. I\u2019ve always loved colour, fountain pens, pencils, paints, brushes, details. I spent hours as a child exploring colour, warm versus cool, families of earth colours, various primaries, patterns and combinations. At school, I loved to draw and paint flowers and birds, though flowers were better since I could do them from life. I am largely self-taught. I could always draw and taught myself watercolours as a teen. I studied art and art history through school and completed a BA in Visual Arts majoring in etching since that was a technique I could use to really explore detail. I then went on to do a Graduate Diploma in Art Education to train as a secondary art teacher.<\/p>\n

These are a couple of the pen and wash drawings I did when I was in my teens\u2014the Strelitzia was from life, the Blue Wren from a photo. This is the sort of work I wanted to create as etchings.<\/p>\n

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Dried Strelitzia<\/em>, Jane Blundell<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Tegen: How did you get into making swatches and exploring the details of pigments and watercolour colours? <\/strong><\/p>\n

Jane: The watercolour set I bought as a teen were a student range with alizarin crimson – the fugitive PR83. It faded in the paintings I did back then, framed and on the walls of my parents\u2019 house. When I switched to an artist quality a few years later I swatched out the colours to compare them, and continued to do the with each colour I tried. When I started using Daniel Smith<\/a> in 1995, they included the pigment numbers on the tubes so I was able to start gathering more information about what I was painting with and so began a rather large study. Eventually, I had tried every Daniel Smith watercolour and created a book including all their pigment information and mixing notes. That led onto my plan to swatch out every brand and every professional watercolour variable. I haven\u2019t quite finished but I am very close!<\/p>\n

I started making mixing charts as samples for my students but I really got carried away with it when I found a large number of the Michal Wilcox swatch cards for $1 a pack as they were water damaged. I completed over 100 of these and put them on my website to share. I also created a book\u00a0Watercolour Mixing Charts\u00a0so they would be more portable. The work of Michael Wilcox and his book The Complete Guide to Watercolour Paints was very influential as I was able to work out which paints to avoid and which were worth trying, though I didn\u2019t totally agree with his chosen \u2018best colours\u2019 \ud83d\ude09 I also found the website\u00a0Handprint.com<\/a>\u00a0really helpful. I have wanted to add to what these gentlemen have done rather than replicate it.<\/p>\n

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Blue Wren<\/em>, Jane Blundell, pen and wash<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Tegen: Do you have any tips for creating mixing grids and how to create a good swatch? Also any tricks for getting the perfect mix?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jane: I have created some mixing grids, but I have found that more random mixes can be more interesting to create and can allow people to see more interesting colour harmonies and combinations. If you look at this example, it could have been done with three rows – the top full strength gold through to ultramarine, the second half strength gold though ultramarine and the third washed out gold through ultramarine. That is time-consuming and gets boring (I know – I\u2019ve done it) but if produced like this, it is just a case of making each brush-strong different. And sometimes the three or four colours that end up next to each other can be an inspiration for a while painting or study.<\/p>\n

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Colour Swatches, Jane Blundell<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For the perfect swatch, start by adding a little clean water to about a third of the swatch so you see how the pigment behaves in water. Add very diluted colour first, then gradually go darker and stronger. I have created a YouTube video showing this.<\/p>\n