This month’s demonstration for the Sidmouth Society of Artists featured South Devon watercolourist Harriet de Winton, a professional artist working out of Chudleigh.

Her interest lies in nature specializing in birds and flowers, or as she put it, ‘botanic illustrations’.

Harriet elected to portray a robin redbreast on some foliage and by virtue of the club’s use of a projector and screen the ample audience was able to follow her every brush stroke and listen to her commentary as she progressed from a very sparse drawing to a beautifully detailed finished painting of a very high standard.

She was most informative describing and demonstrating her method and approach, working light to dark, and using very slender synthetic brushes that helped her go to very fine detail where appropriate. She advocated the use of the highest grade of watercolour paint rather than inferior students’ quality and repeated her mantra that ‘it is easier to add paint than to take it away’.

In this regard her first application of the watercolour was rather dilute and relatively faint. She would then add other slightly stronger hues and work ‘wet in wet’, meaning that the colours ran into one another on the paper surface achieving subtle blending and change in strength.

Incidentally all the demonstrators at the Sidmouth Society of Artists are chosen with great care and are of the highest standard but curiously most artists pride themselves on being loose, sloshing paint about with gay abandon, using the biggest brush size manageable and they surprise everyone by the way their paintings resolve into a tidy and thoroughly convincing result.

A refreshing change then, here with Harriet, where every brush stroke was precise, detailed and immaculate and every movement of the brush exercised with great care.

She brought three published books of her work with her, showing everything from a tiger to a greater stitchwort which only served to highlight her understanding of nature.

The generous round of spontaneous applause at the conclusion was a reflection of the enjoyment of her presentation. For further information about forthcoming programmes of SSA monthly demonstrations please visit our website www.sidmouthsocietyofartists.co.uk