Dee Jackson- Watercolour paintings

Following on my journey of development, I have practiced using the medium of water colour. I have taken inspiration from the Australian water colour portraiture artist Dee Jackson. Watercolour, as a medium, lends itself to the softness and curves of the human form and allows the artist great freedom. This is evident in the work of Dee Jackson whose realistic interpretations of children and truly inspiring. I have rarely used watercolour to paint with, however since coming across Jackson's child portraiture drawings, I can see why the medium is so desirable.

I have practiced with acrylic paint however, I have found the medium difficult to blend and paint with. This is perhaps because the acrylic takes a little longer to dry and the fact that mixing the colours before hand is very tricky, especially when paintings skin tone. However, with watercolour, there is a degree of flexibility which allows you to easily spread your paint amongst the page. It can be easily watered down and the mixing of colours is easily achieved. I feel the technique of layering is important when using any paint, I find this easy when using watercolour since the paint dries fast and the wet on wet technique can be used to blend colours together.

I have created an artist research page inspired by Dee Jackson and have produced my own response. I have however produced a few more response to the artist since completing the artist research page. These can be found on the first page of my portfolio 'the meaning of mother and child' and in my designs ideas book where I have talked about the medium of watercolour in more detail.

Jackson aims to portray the individual character and passion of each child whilst using watercolour. Sometimes Jackson uses mellow light and shade to create seamless edges or on other occasions chooses to use the eclectic mix of textures and colours. Every portrait begins in the same way, a sketch and watercolour washes. However as Jackson states, each portrait is one of 'individual experience'. It can be seen in many of Jacksons watercolour paintings that she also chooses to watercolour wash the background as well, using a sort of wet-on-wet effect. However, I have chosen not to do this in my paintings as I am simply taking inspiration from her technique which is the usage of water colour and her ability to create realistic and characterised paintings.

In response to Saville, I have produced three paintings. the first can be seen on the research page and is a painting in progress. I have deliberately left the paintings like this in order to show the stages in which a water colour paintings is created. This emphasises the layering technique. the second paintings can be seen on the first page of my portfolio which is completely finished. I was very pleased with this paintings because of the accurate representation of colour. The water colour seemed the perfect medium to create such burnt reds and browns. the third painting can be seen in my refinement book. In this book I have placed emphasis on the eyes with watercolour in order to show how that striking blue can bring the child to life.   

in evaluation, I aim to use this technique in my final piece somehow as I feel that it is more reliable at producing a realistic result when painting a child.