Learning from Harry

What are we trying to do?

 

One of our outstanding watercolour artists, Harry Furness, has agreed to let us use some of his old paintings to 'back-engineer' them to find out how he does things. Of course we don't all want to paint the same way, but there will be some golden rules we might be able to pick out from examining Harry's work that we can learn and use for painting pictures in our own style. 

 

How will it work? 

 

I'll post a couple of pictures every so often and ask you to feed back your views about what you like or even just notice about what Harry does or doesn't do on each picture.  I'll then use that information to develop a new list of golden tips which will benefit ourselves and new artists and I'll include it on this page so you can see what's already been suggested.  You can send your feedback on 'Whats app', email or by using the contact sheet on the website.  This is open to all members, including virtual members and even members of the public if they'd like to join in. 

Learning points

  1.  Centre of interest is usually near the upper or lower left third of the picture.  A good composition tip is always to have your centre of interest at the intersection of the lines if you divide your picture into thirds.  
  2. Harry uses mainly soft mid-value colours everywhere except for the key features like men and horses.   
  3. He almost always puts birds into his landscapes to bring them to life.
  4. His horizon line is almost above or below the mioddle. 
  5. Nearest items like the horse are larger to give a sense of perspective.  Look at the perspective lines for the train. 
  6. Harry urges people to use a limited palette - one warm red (cadmium)and one cool red (alizarin), one warm yellow (cadmuim) and one cool yellow (lemon yellow) and one warm blue (ultramarine) and one cool blue (cobalt).  Think of your colour wheel.  A warm red is a red that tends towards orange and yellow.  A cool red is one that tends towards purple and blue.  A warm yellow is one that tends towards orange and red.  A cool yellow is one that tends towards green and blue. A warm blue is one that tends towards purple and red.  A cool blue is one that tends towards green and yellow. 
  7. He will also use burnt sienna mixed with ultramaine to get a good dark. 
  8. He doesn't usually mix his warms and cools. His train and the horses pictures are good examples of a cool palette.     
  9. The darkest area of the bridge in picture 5 is at the top of the arch where it gets almost no reflected light. 
  10. All the detail is in the mid part of the picture - there's hardly any at the edges. 
  11. In most of his work, Harry uses a real or perceived pathway to walk the viewer from the front to the back of the painting.