Club Night: Wendy Jelbert - Depicting Light on Water

Wendy Jelbert was an entertaining demonstrator, full of anecdotes and useful advice on painting in general and depicting light on water in particular.

She used watercolour and acrylic, along with watercolour inks and pencils. She produced two paintings; the first was a scene from a Venetian Canal, with gondolas, while the second was a dramatic rolling wave. The wave painting also featured use of modelling paste to give additional texture at the start and iridescent Pebeo colours to enhance the finished result.

Her advice included:

• Use good quality watercolour paper, which did not need to be stretched.

• Apply coloured (so that you can see it easily) masking fluid to the surface early on, in order to preserve the white surface of the paper.

• Use collage pieces for extra texture and interest. Maps were particularly useful along with photographs that had been printed out.

• Work on the reflections at the same time as the rest of the landscape to ensure a balanced colour scheme.

• Work many layers of colour, ending with acrylic as the top layer.

• Remove the masking fluid, stand back and then decide how to handle the newly revealed white spaces. Acrylic white is also useful.