WINNING WAYS T
Discover the techniques of award-winning artworks
CHRIS DUNN Magpie in George Street, watercolour on paper, 75x48cm Winner, The Bath Prize 2011
he Bath Prize competition requires that your first entry is based on a location specified by the organisers. That was part
of the appeal for me: I work as an illustrator and problem solving is one of the things I like doing. “I took hundreds of photos of George Street
and took them back to my studio. I didn’t have any idea what I was going to do at first. It’s an unusual perspective because I couldn’t create an interesting composition from just one photo. “I began with lots of thumbnail sketches first,
working them up to a larger A4 drawing. I then gridded that up, stretched up a sheet of Arches Hot Pressed 300gsm Aquarelle Watercolour paper and transferred it across. I like knowing where everything is compositionally before I
start painting so I stitched the photographs together in Photoshop to create the whole view. “There was a lot of negative space and I
thought it needed another element. I really wanted to show the magpies’ passage of flight as a device to lead people through the picture. “I like to begin by covering the paper with a
wash of colour to get away from the harsh white of the paper – here I used Yellow Ochre. I put the initial wash over the whole composition to get a sense of harmony from the beginning. “With watercolour, I put lots of glazes on top
of each other. I can put the first layers of colour down knowing that I probably won’t even see them in the finished painting.”
http://chrisdunnillustration.blogspot.com
CHRIS’S ADVICE • If you are struggling for
inspiration, try setting yourself a brief. “I’m more comfortable working within parameters. With the Bath Prize, it felt like I had been given a brief and had to come up with an idea that suited it.” • Unusual perspectives are a challenge worth taking. “I knew I was making it hard on myself but I thought I could show both sides of the street at the same time.” • For larger works, get some hard-wearing brushes. “I mainly use synthetic Pro Arte Series 101 brushes because they can take a lot of punishment without disintegrating. For finer work, I use Kolinsky Sables.”
Artists & Illustrators 67
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