Sharon Kelly is an artist with a drawing led practice, she works across mediums and also produces animations, however this one particular image (below) made me think about how watercolour can really add to an image's metaphorical possibilities.
Sharon Kelly: In the raincloud, 2017
'In the raincloud' fuses together the expressive powers of graphite and watercolour. The dark gritty blacks of watercolour fixed graphite that compose these touching fists are set off against the fluid transparency of a watercolour body rising up into the raincloud. The lower body is barely brushed in, its faint form then becoming more solidified as the image rises, only for it to be lost again as the head disappears into the clouds. The image seems to embody our changing natures, the hard physical reality of hand/fist interaction, merging into a 'head in the clouds' feeling of amorphous day dreaming. We are all an amalgam of conflicting feelings and barely controlled physical elements, but somehow we manage to stay in one piece and hold it together long enough to make a mark and establish relationships before all the various elements that compose us once more disperse and go on to form other things. It is Rodin's watercolours that I first encountered as an answer to the problem of how to capture the body's fluid movement. Rodin's work enables us to read the nature of watercolour as a body of fluidity and the human body as a fluid container. These two ideas are conjoined in Rodin's watercolours as a metaphor for ceaseless movement and metamorphic material exchange. Rodin died in 1917, just over a hundred years ago, and yet I still find these drawings very contemporary, they seem to chime with what has been called the material turn, their appearance easily slipping between representation and presentation, their making still revealing itself as a process rather than as an idea of a finished thing.
Rodin: watercolour and pencil sketches
Originally quick notes made in the studio from a moving model, Rodin's watercolour and pencil sketches throb with an energy that comes in and out of focus as the stains of watercolour attempt to move in one way and the directional lines of pencil another. It is as if energy fields are coming into being, the shapes of bodies coalescing into what could be a human being, but which could also be islands or continents of forming matter. I now find these drawings useful metaphors for thoughts associated with fluid gender, current concerns in gender politics finding a new resonance in a series of drawings done by an old man searching for new forms within an old tradition.
Roger Ebert stated that art is an empathy machine, I think he mistook the art for the machine and it is really human beings that are the empathy machines. I tune myself into these images as I would when listening to another person telling me their stories. Sometimes I think we all operate like radio receivers. As a boy I spent hours trying to tune in to just out of focus radio stations on a crystal set built as part of a school science project, and the struggle to tune in made you very aware of how fragile signals can be and how carefully you need to adjust your dial to what is being communicated.
A crystal set using a pencil lead attached to a safety pin pressing against a razor blade for a detector.
In this case I'm asking you to imagine the station we are trying to tune into is radio watercolour and the bandwidth is tuned to paints made of pigments suspended in water-based solutions. In French these are aquarelles or if we are looking at a very close cousin, water-soluble colored ink, these are called "aquarellum atramento", which could be the sound of an even fainter radio station from across the Channel. Perhaps time to drop this analogy but the way that these two very closely related substances work is however different and as 'the medium is the message', it's worthwhile looking at some of the actual ingredients of watercolour in more detail and as we do, to consider the implications of a more material led set of concepts.
The term "watercolour" refers to paints that use water-soluble, complex carbohydrates as a binder, such as sugars and/or hide glues. Since the 19th century, the preferred natural binder is gum arabic, with glycerine and/or honey as additives to improve plasticity and solubility. The elements that will effect the final look of an image made with watercolour paints are a combination of several things which are:
1. The pigment or pigments used. Each pigment is a chemical compound that will absorb some of the light cast upon it and that will reflect the rest of it. Which wavelengths are reflected or absorbed depends on the properties of the chemical compound. In the case of cadmium yellow for example wavelengths of about 570 to 580 nanometers bounce back as these are the wavelengths of yellow light. The other important issue about pigments is that they will not dissolve in water. After grinding, the fine particles of a pigment are suspended in water, like river silt, and will settle to the bottom over time. Therefore the issue of dispersion is important because the more water added the more the gaps between particles increases; a badly stirred pot of watercolour may have particles closer together near the bottom and further apart at the top. This is one of the key attributes and the reason why you can make watercolour behave in different ways in relation to how deposits of pigment are left on the paper. This is also why manufacturers spend a lot of time thinking about pigment volume concentration and its role in how a colour will be applied.
The other issue about pigments is that some are more powerful than others when it comes to tinting. Therefore some colours require a lot of pigment and others a much smaller amount, this in conjunction with the size the pigments are milled down to, usually 0.05 to 0.5 microns, can lead to more or less grains being moved around within your watercolour solution and therefore the type of surface quality left when the water evaporates.
The first watercolour paints were pure pigment bound with only a little gum and applied with little water. The finished effect was dense, colourful and bright. When a small amount of pigment is mixed with a lot of gum, and applied with a lot of water, the pigment is less dense and so the paint becomes transparent. This allows the painting support, such as white paper, to shine through the paint, and this tends to be how we think of 'watercolour' as a contemporary medium. My own focus on this is the fact that the drying up or evaporation of water deposits the grains of pigment onto a surface in the same way that large bodies of water dry up and that by using these properties landscape features ranging from puddles to salt lakes can be alluded to. The use of watercolour in some ways being a small scale model for one of nature's geological formations. Granulation is an effect made by certain pigments as their particles settle into the hollows of the paper and this property, together with flucculation or the tendency for pigments to be drawn together into clumps, (This tendency is usually caused by electrical effects) will be essential to the way different pigments will eventually settle onto the paper as the water evaporates.
2. A brightener consisting of transparent or "white" crystals is often added to a paint to lighten the tone and increase the chroma of the dried paint. Brighteners are often materials that absorb UV light and then transmit it in the blue range to counter the effect of yellowing. They make whites appear ‘brighter’ to the human eye. This is a more recent development and is becoming more and more common because we have become attuned to brighter colours and in particular to whiter than white whites. Those artists that grind their own colours and make their own paints, are sometimes disappointed by the intensity of their colour mixes, it is though simply that they are in effect making paints from an earlier generation. This 'brightening' effect is something that has a very different series of associations. The fact that we need 'whiter than white' clothes reflects certain ideas we have about purity and cleanliness and darker, murky colours are also associated with more unacceptable moods. Tonality is a way of thinking about our society. In the past for instance a melancholic temperament was associated with a certain 'darkness' but this was quite acceptable and was thought of as quite natural especially for someone of a poetic sensibility. It is now however suggested that we should all aim to be happy, therefore we should be surrounded by brighter 'happy' colours. The association of colour with mood is an old one and it still persists, for instance see this link.
3. A medium that the pigment is dispersed into. This will consist mainly of water, which is essential to both the dissolving of binders, dispersants and moisture retainers and to the suspension of pigment and other particles. The main aspects of tap water that affect the process are pH and hardness. Water with an acid pH will eventually eat into the paper and may affect some pigments. Hard water can make paints granulate more and cause them to flow differently from soft water. However these are very subtle differences, the most interesting aspect for an artist is probably where the water is coming from. By using water from a particular pond, or from the Dead Sea or from rainwater collected from a puddle in the middle of a dry season etc. an artist can indicate an association with other things outside of the eventual 'look' of the image. Of course the fact that water evaporates is how the pigment eventually is settled out of suspension and laid onto the surface of the paper or other surface being used to paint on. Water is also 'the elixir of life' and has a long metaphoric series of entanglements with life, rebirth etc. etc.
The next thing needed is a binder, now mainly gum Arabic but sometimes a synthetic glycol is used. Not only will the binder make sure the pigment will stick to the paper, the type and amount of it used will effect the way that the image is seen.
As you can see from the chart above, binders affect the colours we see. If you look at the diagrams below you can see why and how. Some binders will effectively surround the pigment, so that when they dry you need to look through them to see the actual pigment. Our colour perception is in effect shifted by the amount of reflected light bouncing straight off the surface. On the lower diagram we can see that light is coming directly from the grains of pigment (there is another issue as to what reflected light really is but that is another issue), the binder acting to stick the pigment to the substrata without having to smother the pigment.
You can work with binders just as you can work with pigments. For instance gum Arabic can be used as a resist and a much more subtle one than wax or latex based resists. Turner used gum Arabic resists.
A plasticizer, usually glycerin, to soften the dried gum arabic and help it redissolve. Without this you would not be able to transfer the colour from your watercolour pans or tablets.
A humectant, traditionally simple syrup or honey but now often inexpensive corn syrup, to help the paint retain mosture (especially in pan paints)
An extender or filler, such as dextrin, used to bulk out and thicken the paint without noticeably affecting the colour
Dispersants (to prevent clumping of the raw pigment after manufacture and to speed up the milling of the pigment and vehicle ingredients)
A humectant, traditionally simple syrup or honey but now often inexpensive corn syrup, to help the paint retain mosture (especially in pan paints)
An extender or filler, such as dextrin, used to bulk out and thicken the paint without noticeably affecting the colour
Dispersants (to prevent clumping of the raw pigment after manufacture and to speed up the milling of the pigment and vehicle ingredients)
Fungicide or preservative to suppress the growth of mold or bacteria.
A surfactant which allows water to be soaked into the paper, by lowering the surface tension between water and the paper.
Andy Goldsworthy sometimes simply mixes local pigments into snowballs and lets them melt onto paper.
A surfactant which allows water to be soaked into the paper, by lowering the surface tension between water and the paper.
Andy Goldsworthy
Andy Goldsworthy: Snowball drawing
Andy Goldsworthy sometimes simply mixes local pigments into snowballs and lets them melt onto paper.
All of these things can be researched and used as ways into thinking about different directions for your work. For instance you may want to dig for materials that you want to use for making pigments. But where from? Are particular locations important? Would you have to draw a map? The sourcing of a pigment and the associated journeys to access it may be as important as the grinding and mixing of various grains, or the making of the colours into 'pans'. Remember everything has the potential to become a pigment, it only needs to be ground down and dissolved, therefore all sorts of ideas can begin at this stage, Cornelia Parker had pornographic video tapes dissolved and made into pigments for her "Pornographic Drawing" and "House Blot" was made with ground down brick dust from a house that fell from the white cliffs of Dover. You could also think about these issues in relation to sustainability or put a focus on the process of sorting through various stones/minerals in preparation for grinding and making into pigments.
I have posted on types of papers before, and of course these are just as important as the watercolour paints themselves. Every surface has a history. However it is worthwhile, just as it is with the pigments and other materials, to separate their 'ur'-history from their physical and chemical properties.
I have posted on types of papers before, and of course these are just as important as the watercolour paints themselves. Every surface has a history. However it is worthwhile, just as it is with the pigments and other materials, to separate their 'ur'-history from their physical and chemical properties.
The 'ur'-history of something (a Walter Benjamin term) is what you can deduce from the history of something's manufacture. Who made it? What terms and conditions did the workers who made the item work under? Why was it made? Who oversaw the making? Who profited from the making? How many different people were involved in getting the object to where it is now? A sheet of paper may begin with foresters looking after a particular managed plantation, then lumberjacks brought in to fell the trees, then bulldozer drivers to move the trees, people involved with transport, the paper mill owners and workers that begin the process of turning the wood into wood pulp for paper. Then there are the people involved with the various processes such as sizing, (a chemical factory/s will produce sizes, fungicides etc. and all these places will involve human labour and interaction) and don't forget the drivers and loaders who move things around and the people that are involved in selling the paper, from shopkeepers to travelling salespeople.
The networks and entanglements that lie behind things are where certain types of ideas begin. You can then illuminate these relationships and help people notice what they had not noticed before. This is why background research can be so important to you as an artist and so rewarding to you as a person.
Links to some previous posts on paper
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