Watercolour inspiration from around the world.

Watercolour inspiration. I have been thinking of doing an artist share for quite a while now, and I thought that today is the day! There are a lot of artists that I admire, and I decided to start by sharing 12 of my favourite watercolour artists. It was difficult to choose only 12, but these are the ones that I most look to for inspiration at the moment. It was also difficult to decide which painting of theirs to share with you. I have so many favourite paintings, so I chose one that most represent the idea of why I am so inspired by the artist and artwork in the first place. If that makes any sense. I also chose to include only contemporary artists, so artists alive and working as we speak.

This post has taken me almost 2 weeks to write. Not the writing part itself, but the search for images online to post with it. I had a rough idea from the beginning of who I wanted to include in this share, but still, it took me quite some time to go through them all and choose a painting. Mostly I think because while researching these artists, I discovered many new artists and I got frequently sidetracked. *smiling big to myself*

These artworks are all copyrighted to the original artists. I will share links to their websites, so I hope you will be as impressed by them as I am, and go and show them some love!

First up is David Parfitt. http://davidparfitt-art.co.uk David is a watercolour artist from the UK. He paints mainly landscapes, and I fell in love with them the first time I saw them. He has a great sense of light in his paintings that I particularly like. I also really like the way he composes his landscapes, and the often abstract quality to them feels very fresh.

Xavier Swolfs. (Belgium)  https://www.xavierswolfs.be Xavier has a very light feeling to his paintings, and most of them are painted very transparently. It sounds maybe a little funny since watercolour is a very transparent medium, but still, that is the word that comes to mind looking at his paintings. Very delicate, and with that same abstract quality to them that I really have come to love lately!

Morten E. Solberg (USA) is an old favourite of mine. http://www.mortenesolberg.com  He makes both landscape and wildlife painting exciting! I love how he leaves a lot of the paper white, and his compositions are just spot on! His influence on my painting style is quite big at the moment, and his mastery of the medium watercolour is just amazing!

Sabrina Garrasi is a new acquaintance. (Italian) http://www.sabrinagarrasi.com/website/index.php  She makes these dreamy abstract landscapes with beautiful muted and quite dark colours. They feel mysterious and like something from a midwinter tale you enjoy before the open fire. 

Kaiko Tanabe. (Japanese) https://ktanabefineart.com She specialises in landscapes and cityscapes, but my favourite paintings of hers are the interiors. She has a few kitchen paintings that are just brilliant, and then interiors of bar and restaurants. This happens to be from a tea room in Shanghai, so that's why I chose it. Her depiction of light is spectacular. I have nothing more to say about it, it's just spectacular!

Stephanie Pui-Mun Law. (USA) http://www.shadowscapes.com  Stephanie has a beautiful imagination and her technical skills with watercolour are over-worthly just like her paintings. Much of her work is about faeries and dragons, but I can really recommend studying her work for tips on how to paint with watercolours, even if you are not normally drawn to that kind of subject.

Ann Blockley. (UK) http://annblockley.com Ann Blockley has a very modern twist to her watercolours, and often also include other media and a sort of printmaking with different objects in her watercolours to create structure. I find them very fascinating to study. She has also given out many books on the subject watercolours. 

Karl Mårtens. (Sweden) http://karlmartens.se Karl has been hugely inspired by the Asian Shi-t'ao way of painting watercolours, where every brushstroke has a meaning and should be able to 'stand alone'. His primary subject of paintings are birds, so naturally, I am a huge fan!

Lucy Newton. (UK) http://lucynewtonartist.com Well, what's not to like? I love the abstract background in contrast to the detailed bird, something I myself have been trying do for a few years now. It's elegant and exciting at the same time!

Johannes Nevala. (Sweden)  https://www.nevala.se  Johannes paints a lot from life out in the field. His watercolours, therefore, have a freshness and 'in the moment' feel to them that only birds painted from life can have. This in combination with bold strokes and beautiful light makes his paintings a big inspiration to me!

Rachel Walker. (Australia)  https://www.walkerillo.com Rachel has a totally different approach to painting birds than Johannes. Her paintings are planned, composed and very illustrative in their appearance. I must add very intricate as well. I love the combination of the tight details of her drawings with the flow of the watercolours. Just stunning!

And last: Qin Tianzhu. (China) I could not find a website for this Chinese watercolourist, but there are a lot of his paintings to be found on the internet. He had a beautiful eye for composition and a master in getting down a lot of information with a minimum of brushstrokes. I enjoy looking at Chinese watercolour artists, but unfortunately, it is a little difficult to search for them online if you do not know how to write and read their name in Chinese since their name written in Pinyin ('our' alphabet) can vary greatly.

That was it for this time. I would love to hear who your favourite watercolour artist is/are, so please tell me in the comment box! 

Until next week!