Just Watercolour

Howell works on location, moving around on his motorbike, so he keeps his equipment simple. He uses pans, rather than tube paints, limiting his colours to a warm and cool variant of each primary, along with a number of earths. For sketching, he carries a roll of coloured and ordinary pencils.

Howell’s method is to first undertake a number of separate sketches, often adding colour for reference when working back in his studio. But these drawings also give him a feel of what goes where, so that he can confidently construct his paintings straight onto the paper, without any underdrawing. He demonstrates this when tackling a broad view of the Somerset Levels, with a reed bed in the foreground to set against the trees in the distance. After completing a couple of sketches, he applies his paint straight onto the paper, initially in loose washes, and then adds detail with a lizard lick Rigger, and a sharpened stick. This natural landscape is contrasted with a view of Brixham harbour, with its jumble of buildings and boats. The challenge here, after the initial sketch, is to ensure the whole composition will fit onto the paper, as he has no pencil guide.

Moving down to Salcombe, he goes off the normal tourist route, to find an area of old boatsheds in various stages of disrepair. They create interesting shapes through their characterful architecture and cast shadows. He combines this view with sketches of boats nearby, showing how to collect and blend visual material. His final work is a watercolour sketch rather than a resolved composition, of the expansive River Teign. Though only a sketch, he still does a little preparatory drawing to get the feel of the composition. To conclude, Howell puts the finishing touches to his painting of Brixham Quay back in his studio. The painting showcases the advantages of the pencil-free approach through the sheer clarity he achieves. The film should inspire readers to try drawing a composition separately, and then having a go at painting without any guidelines. It is definitely a challenge, but if mastered, it allows watercolours to show their luminous potential.

This stripped-down approach does, however, allow him to concentrate on the painting, the “Just Watercolour” of the title. A small half-pan box, a couple of brushes, a block of paper and a really quite generous roll of pencils are all he needs.

Ah yes, the pencils. David explains at the beginning that he doesn’t like to sketch on the watercolour block itself; rather he prefers to make a coloured pencil sketch that gets the composition, provides a record “in case anything changes” and also helps with details that may be important later.

With this done, David works straight onto the paper. His first outing, on the Somerset levels, is a series of washes that blend into one another, with more defined shapes, such as a gateway, done wet-in-wet, the result being a graduated progression of colours that captures a misty morning perfectly.

Later demonstrations at Brixham and Salcombe are more complex scenes with boats and buildings and it is interesting to see how David uses blocks of colour, building up a composition of initially unconnected shapes, gradually bringing them together using the pencil sketch as a guide.

The result is an intriguing and delightful wander through the ways of watercolour, with lots of good advice along the way

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