Catherine Beale
Catherine is an award-winning painter and author of a new book ‘Capturing light’ - part of the Innovative Artist Series by Search Press. She specialises in wet-in-wet watercolours and keeps them fresh and mobile with her “gravity painting” techniques. Dropping pure pigments onto a wet board and encouraging them to mingle can help to free up painting styles and promote brave colour use and full tonal range.
Professional since the 1990s, she initially painted in Singapore with commissions from embassies, companies and works gifted to the Singapore state collection and British Royal family. Returning to the UK in 2006, she was elected to the Society of Women Artists and is a frequent demonstrator at their exhibition in London's Mall Galleries. Her award-winning portraits have exhibited with the Royal Watercolour Society and Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours, the Royal West of England Academy in Bristol and Holburne Museum’s Portrait Prize Bath. She writes about watercolour landscapes for The Artist Magazine and enjoys teaching across England and Wales.
Offers: Demonstrations, Workshops, Online sessions
Media: Watercolours: “I enjoy working on rigid surfaces - watercolour artboard, clay panels, gessoed wood panels. I have developed my “gravity painting” techniques by trial and error over the last 15 years. I drop pure pigments onto a pre-wetted surface and encouraging them to mingle naturally, encouraging watermarks to develop and locking them in in the early stages. Once dry I adjust tone, “dialling it up” with the use of solid tubed paint, dialing tone down by subtle use of lifting-off techniques. Paintings are characterised by brave colour use, loose, flowing paint passages and maximum tonal range including use of the white surface.”
Line and wash: Permanent ink pairs beautifully with flowing watercolours for a more illustrative style and attractive detailed finish.
Life drawing: Pencil, charcoal, chalks, pastels etc
Subjects: Landscapes, Cityscapes, Seascapes, Portraits from photographs, Life drawing from model, Semi-abstract landscapes, Composition, Pigment behaviours, Using memory and the imagination. Life/figure drawing - pencil/pastels/chalk/charcoal on cartridge/sugar paper.
Will travel to: Up to 3 hours from Bath. Also Sussex, Nottingham and Manchester.
Email: art@catherinebeale.com
Phone: 07891 409490
