Jeremy Taylor is a Yorkshire teacher, artist and demonstrator who mainly paints in oils and watercolour. He came to Pateley Bridge Art Club to demonstrate watercolour landscapes.
Jeremy explained that he had been painting for many years and was self taught. He described how he spends a lot of time thinking about a painting and planning how to do it before commencing. This enables him to paint quickly, avoiding changes that can ruin a watercolour and achieve a fresh look to the painting.
Jeremy used 140lb (300gsm) branded watercolour paper, as he believes that paper quality is important to achieving good results. He does not stretch his paper as it frees his approach to painting and encourages him to start again on the other side if it goes wrong. He thinks that this happens quite a lot in watercolour painting compared with oil painting which can be corrected more easily.
He usually limits his colours to warm and cool hues of the primary colours. His brushes are usually acrylic, 1.5 inch flat brushes for backgrounds and small round brushes for detail.
For his first demonstration he wet his paper thoroughly with several applications of water, then applied sweeping strokes of blue across the sky with his wide brush. He painted yellow ochre patches and strokes across the foreground, adding darker blue to create lines of hills.
He added trees in various shades of mixed green in the mid ground and background and did some scratching out for tree branches using paint tube caps. As a focal point, Jeremy painted a cottage with a warm colour and etched in a path. The photograph under dim indoor lighting does not do justice to the finished result.
After the break, Jeremy painting a snow scene in limited colours. He wet the paper a little less than the previous painting. He left areas of white paper to show the lighter snow. He washed in blue in various shades.
Jeremy added trees lines and walls, then tree branches with minimal strokes and some fine pencil for the thinner branches. The tree crowns are suggested by a light misting of browns and grey colour, avoiding greens. He added a path then a shepherd and sheep create areas of interest that would balance the composition.
The demonstration showed how results can be achieved with a freer approach to painting. His many suggestions and his dry Yorkshire humour were much appreciated.
Examples of his work
Jeremy brought examples of his paintings in a wide range of subjects. The following are just a sample. The images again suffer from poor lighting and reflections.
All images are copyright of Jeremy Taylor.