Arty Conversation at the RA Café, watercolour, 12X16in (30X40.5cm). A set of shapely gestures from the brush materialises into a sketch of people in a café. Examine the brushmarks here: some are shaped for profiles, heads and hands, some for chair legs and backs, some for shoes and shadows. Probably less than one in five landed exactly as I intended but I trusted them anyhow, and together, one after the other, they orchestrated the whole
Hazel Soan has studios in London and Cape Town and travels widely for her painting. Hazel is the author of 14 painting books, has recorded several DVDs and her work is in private and public collections, including the National Portrait Gallery and a number of embassies. www.allsoanup.com
Many people who paint in watercolour also play golf and, coming from a golfing household, I can confirm there are indeed similarities! Like golf, watercolour benefits from fewer strokes; golf uses a set of clubs to deliver different shots, watercolour uses a quiver of brushes; in golf, the stroke is delivered from a static position – it is not a reactive sport – meaning you alone are responsible for your delivery, so too in watercolour. In the Frustrated Golfers’ Handbook the coach asks his students: ‘What do you want to achieve when you are on the putting green?’ invariably they answer ‘To get the ball close to the hole’, or ‘I want to get within three feet,’ or ‘I don’t want to three putt’. Hardly ever, apparently, do they say ‘I want the ball in the hole’.