Ian McManus

We met on Friday February at Putnoe Heights Church for our demonstration this month when IanMcManus stepped in to cover an illness by our scheduled speaker. He gave us a talk, usingwatercolour, of a cityscape showing a cafe scene in Paris.Using a limited palette of colours he began by drawing the scene, then putting a weak wash over thesky, the buildings and cafe, plus the foreground pavement. He used a large brush for this. Hestressed the point that these ‘background’ colours should be paler than the foreground colours,which will pick up the main features of the picture.The background buildings were sketched in using more or less water to highlight the variousfeatures of windows, ledges, drainpipes, chimneys etc. The foreground buildings were painted withmore depth.When it came to the foreground, Ian changed to a smaller, finer brush to define the tables, chairs,people and he used less water thus giving a greater depth to the colour. The trees and lamps wereput in at this time too.Ian explained that with watercolour you need to have contrasting opposites - such as light and dark,wet on wet plus dry brush work. He tries to work in blocks of colour and shape - the sky, thebuildings and the foreground pavements.A most interesting evening.

Diane Bell