There was a packed hall to see well-known watercolour artist, Sharon Hurst demonstrate her impressive skills and techniques in this medium.  She is an engaging and entertaining presenter, keeping us amused with her funny anecdotes and comments, alongside the serious business of showing us the delights as well as the pitfalls of watercolours. 

 

She explained she would be using 'wet into dripping, wet into wet, wet into damp and wet into dry' techniques.  She talked about her tools and materials, makes of paints and the colours she uses. Sharon had lightly sketched and outlined with masking fluid, the toadstools she would paint and had another smaller painting of a similar subject as reference, which you can see in the photo below.  Firstly, Sharon painted a light area using Naples Yellow behind the toadstools, 'to make them shine'.  Next using lots of water (the dripping stage) and a hake brush, she dropped in Cascade Green and Sap Green, letting them mingle and run. A slightly thicker Prussian Blue was then added in parts of the background for intensity and variation in tone.   An unusual tool of a porcupine quill was used to scratch into the paper whilst still damp, to allow the paint to leak into the indentation.  These scratch marks conveyed the grasses but she said it is also good for hair, or showing bricks or stones in a wall.  Splattering water on damp paint gives a similar effect to sprinkling salt, which she also demonstrated later in the demo. 

 

​​​​​Sharon next concentrated on the toadstools, using masking fluid this time to mask out the dots on the cap.  She told us a very funny story involving a bottle of masking fluid and her mother - if you were there you would know!  Permanent Yellow Deep was painted on one patch of each cap first, before adding the reds, the deeper one towards the edge.  She showed us how to correct errors - with wicking to remove drips, and using a damp brush, working towards the part you want to remove, rather than away.