Step by step watercolours with Jacky Pearson
Weekend workshop: 19/20 August 2023
Promoted as a workshop for beginners and early learners, the weekend led by Jacky Pearson started with a fanfare of sirens as the fire brigade arrived to what was a false alarm. The class of 14 with a range of painting experience found the back-to-basics demonstrations were a useful refresher and an opportunity to experiment with different techniques and effects on paper.
Jacky is a very experienced painter and tutor. Large posters showing colour association, perspective, painting techniques as well as handouts on pigments and colour mixing were a useful teaching resource we could refer to.
Her painting style uses washes involving copious amounts of water. A regular call heard during painting exercises was - more water, more water - to a point that paint beads liberally flowed down the paper to towels to the bench.
At the end, our finished landscapes were lined up and Jacky gave a constructive critique on what looked good or needed further work; then the challenge was given out to do a painting every week.
Thanks for the guidance, Jacky. Challenge accepted.
by Steve Dunn
Weekend workshop Step by Step Watercolour with Jacky Pearson
by Carolyn Hope
August 2022
On a damp and blustery Wellington day, 14 of us met at the Karori Arts Centre for a much anticipated workshop with renowned artist and tutor Jacky Pearson. As beginners and early learners, this was our first venture into painting and into watercolours, feared by many as far too difficult to master. Despite reading how to books with beautiful examples of Devonshire cottages and watching Youtube, I found nothing beats observing live demonstrations, and having a go with one-on-one help.
It was extraordinary how much Jacky covered. She demystified the colour wheel which we painted. She explained warm and cool colours and their personalities. We painted a lemon to show tonal range in monochrome then in colour using lemon yellow and its surprising complementary purple for the shadows. This was followed by our first landscape with atmospheric perspective, washes, wet-on-wet and wet-on-dry effects.
Every step was demonstrated by Jacky. We learned colour mixing, the dilutions of paint from weak tea to paste and ways to hold brushes for different effects. Day one finished with stretching paper pulling it after a good soak before taping onto hardboard. On day two, the dry paper was astonishingly flat, ready for painting. The day finished with a landscape of billowing clouds and a headland, finished with a tiny sailboat perfectly placed on the golden mean for compositional effect. We enjoyed forming the yacht using masking tape and wiping out paint to leave a white sail. I now see clouds so differently as blues and magenta and raw sienna, negative spaces, scumbling and washes. I cant wait to buy my first Da Vinci Casaneo round. Thank you Watercolour New Zealand and Jacky for this opportunity to venture into the world of watercolour.
Step by Step Watercolour with Jacky Pearson
Mike Dewson, Whanganui
2019
THE WEEKEND OF OUR WORKSHOP was wet and cool, but we were warm and comfortable in the well-equipped Karori Art Centre with our expert teacher, Jacky Pearson. We were a group of fifteen enthusiastic beginners and early learners of watercolour painting.
Our course began with gaining an understanding of warm and cool colours, and Jacky had devised a dinner plate palette for us and showed us how to arrange the colours. It was a very clever idea, and gave us a clear understanding of warm and cool colours.
Throughout the course Jacky gave us simple and useful tips like filling our water containers to the top so that we could apply the correct amount of water to our brushes accurately, and putting the water container on the side of our dominant hand. Experienced people do it intuitively but to beginners it is not obvious.
We then learnt about hue, tone and chroma and to explain the concepts, Jacky did an excellent demonstration for us, then encouraged us to try ourselves. We then learnt about four important elements of watercolour: water, pigment, gravity, and timing. We had more demonstrations and then completed an exercise.
After lunch on the first day we started our first painting. It was about yachts on the harbour with dark hills in the background. Jacky taught us about sky washes, priming, and laying in the background.
She later taught us how to lift some colour off the work, leaving yacht sails against the dark hills. It was like magic. Jacky is a wonderful teacher who has high expectations of her students, even beginners like us, and we were very excited about our results - much better than we could have imagined.
We finished the first day learning how to stretch watercolour paper, and left tired but very satisfied. On the second day we learnt about brush handling, drawing for painting, and perspective, but our main task was to complete a sea and cliffscape using our stretched paper. It looked so easy watching Jacky demonstrate for us, but we soon realised that watercolour painting is a complex pursuit. However, with plenty of gentle guidance, assistance and encouragement from Jacky, we all produced quite exciting results, although my tree on the cliff top looked rather oversized and mushroom-like - I told my wife it was just a first draft.
The weekend was a wonderful learning experience, and as we individually thanked Jacky, we knew that we had been privileged to be taught by such an expert watercolour artist and outstanding teacher. Thank you, Jacky.
'Go with the Flow' Jacky Pearsons Workshop
Stephen Gilliver
August 2018
Fabulous!.. the best word I can think of right now to describe this workshop. A dictionary definition of fabulous is extremely pleasing and it really was a weekend of extremely pleasing watercolour tuition and practice resulting in both a completed landscape and a street scene together with a host of advice about colour mixing and techniques.
A lot of ground was covered, including the use of the Golden Mean rather than the Rule of Thirds when placing the focal point(s) in a composition and the focus of achieving a successful wash flowed around the juggling of water, pigment, timing & gravity.
Jackys natural teaching ability enabled everyone to gain much during these two days and to advance
their individual artistic skills whether a beginner, intermediate painter or the more experienced watercolour artist.
Jacky Pearsons Shadows and Light Workshop
Joyce Heal
When signing up for this workshop, I had mistakenly imagined that wed be spending the weekend working on landscapes/seascapes incorporating shadows and light.
As Jacky handed out the pictures from which wed be working I almost ran out the door kicking and screaming - the subjects were a horse and a man with a stop sign! But, as usual, Jacky was very generous with her information and helpful in every way. It was creating magic to see the different wash layers changing the colours and leaving white paper in strategic places to catch the light.
Trying to paint faces was a challenge but, under Jackys guidance, it all worked. There were also lessons in capturing figures in crowd scenes without too much emphasis on features, using light and shade.
A challenging and rewarding workshop. Thank you, Jacky.
Jacky Pearsons Watercolour for Beginners Workshop
Margaret Taylor
Watercolour is a challenging medium and in Jacky Pearson, Watercolour New Zealand has found the perfect beginners tutor. The barriers to learning were minimised with materials provided, careful step-by-step instruction, comprehensive notes and ample demonstrations.
Initially Jacky taught us how to use the brushes and mix the paint to make different washes. I had never achieved a successful graded wash before. However, doing this on small scale with very exact instructions on the ratio of water to paint saw me achieve an acceptable result within a short time.
We began a small landscape with a graded wash toward the horizon line, a few hills and fields in afternoon light. The key learning point was how to depict distance and depth in a painting through colour and scale. We took photos of Jackys technique posters and agreed that she should write a book!
On Sunday we completed our paintings with trees in the mid-ground complete with shadows and a foreground fenceline and large tree. I think the technique for shadows will require a lot more practice as this was designed as an introductory course.
Then we learned how to paint a boat in water using our stretched paper from Saturday with its sunset sky as the base.
I missed the critique as I had to leave early but the workshop is the best I have ever attended and I look forward to more.
