Mr
Knaggs demonstrated his use of the white of watercolour
paper and a wet into wet technique to quickly paint animal
and bird pictures with strong contrast.
He
used 160 gms cotton NOT paper stretched on a board with
Cotman & W&N transparent watercolours and worked
flat with his demonstration projected onto a screen via
a camera and computer.
He
worked with a light pencil sketch and wet the paper well
into carefully selected areas. He then dropped in the dark
colours which spread across the wet areas only. The drying
time was lengthy so three paintings were worked on alternately.
After
the initial medium strength colours, such as on the left
side of the rabbits and the dark areas of the cattle, he
added darker colours into the shadow areas.
The
background was left white, in contrast to the very strong
shadows.
