Colour & Light in Watercolour

About Jean Haines

Prize-winning and inspirational watercolourist Jean Haines is well-known for her love of her chosen medium and the ability to instil enthusiasm and motivation in all around her. Having lived and travelled in many countries, this popular international artist and teacher has developed her skills while under the influence of masters from many countries, including Asia, the Middle East and Europe.

Jean runs hugely popular international watercolour workshops for artists from around the globe, and her highly sought-after paintings can similarly be found in homes all over the world. Jean is a member of the SWA, Society for Women Artists, and has won numerous awards for her work, including the Anthony J Lester Award during the SWA Annual Exhibition, and the SAA Professional Artist of the Year, Experimental and Abstract Award. She regularly writes for art magazines and exhibits in a number of galleries.

Jean lives in Hampshire, UK. For more information, visit www.jeanhaines.com. 

 

The SAA Catalogue 19/20

Jean's passion for art shows as she guides you through a variety of exciting projects.

With subjects ranging from atmospheric winter landscapes to bright colourful cockerels you are sure to be inspired!

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Cygnus Review

Summer 2016, Issue 2

This is a new edition of Jean Haine's first and bestselling title.We have included it for people who want to go a little bit deeper into painting and learn more skills and techniques. Just like Paint Yourself Calm, this is also large format and full of colour. It's not intended for absolute beginners but there are certainly no concepts or requirements that make this impentrable to someone new to watercolour painting.

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The Leisure Painter

July 2016

This is a reissue of Jean's first book which originally appeared as part of a series aimed at beginners. It was never well suited to the format and length always made the artist's work feel constrained. A redesigned and more than doubled extent have give it wings that are more in keeping with her later books. Extended re-issues do not work, authors move on a what they wanted to say on the subject in question was usually there in the original. Additions can feel at best bolted on or, at worst out-takes that should have stayed on the cutting room floor. This emphatically is not the case here. The original has promise and that has been realised now, the result being a triumph.

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Kreative review

The range of its capabilities, it shows in numerous illustrations, instructions and important advice on watercolours.  We see exotic dressed people, foreign cityscapes, delicate flowers, fruits and animals repeatedly. But looking at the sun-drenched images, the indicated details, the harmony of color selection arouses enthusiasm. However,  learning this particular style of painting requires fundamental knowledge. Painters who represent very realistically and in detail, will have difficulties with the implementation. The experimental artist, however, will have the courage to do so and the casual use of the brush is love, this technique can be learned easily.
The prerequisite is to develop each chapter of the book. To better understand the painting Jean Haines shows detailed examples to brush selection and their handling. Many mixtures of their eleven favorite colors are presented, with which it has this book also painted most of the pictures. In the chapter "light and how we see it" it gives an insight into their distinctive way of representation of light and strong contrasts. Known techniques such as wet-on-wet, glazes, salt, negative painting, spraying technique, are demonstrated.
But what good is the perfect mastery of basic skills, if in the end produced a boring image? Only the composition makes the picture into a unique and unusual artwork. From their many years of painting experience knows the artist that before painting the thinking is. First we have to decide what we want to paint. As the object is lively and compelling? What foreground and background should we choose? What colors cause a harmonious whole? How are the brush strokes are performed? Only after these preliminary we should start painting.
In the penultimate chapter "Summary" shows Jean Haines progressive image formation on the example of two taps, a fleeing rabbit and a Seascape with boats. The detailed imaging that brief but informative texts and useful tips make Technique clearly and comprehensibly. What I personally have missed something, is the lack of photographic pictures. I would have been interested in whether the artist paints with no pictures or sketches and photos to help take the reaction of light and shadow, the search for interesting details not easy for me without visual aids. For the advanced experimental watercolourist looking for a loose style of painting, the book is recommended "Colour and light".

In der überarbeiteten Neuauflage ihres Buches Colour and light widmet sich die Künstlerin Jean Haines dem Thema Farbe und Licht. Die Bandbreite ihres Könnens zeigt sie in zahlreichen Abbildungen, Anleitungen und wichtigen Tipps zum Aquarellmalen.Die vielfältigen Eindrücke ihrer Fernreisen lässt sie in ihre impressionistisch wirkenden Bilder einfließen. Wir sehen exotische gekleidete Menschen, fremde Stadtansichten, zarte Blumen, Früchte und immer wieder Tiere.

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SAA Paint

I'm not normally a fan of revised re-issues. Artists move on and what they wanted to say on a subject was pretty much perfectly formed at the time. Unpicking a thread and trying to make it into sommething else all to often lands up with a mess. But... and it's a very big but. Jean Haines and Search Press have done a superb job here. This was Jean's first book and it appeared in a beginner's series to which it and her style, were never really suited. Jean belongs to the broder canvas, as it were and her loose impressionistic style needs room to breathe. Basic instruction and 48 pages felt more like an eagle in a cage - you could see the potential, but not the spread of the wings. For this version which has enlarged the format and more than doubled the extent, there's been a complete redesign that's in keeping with the later books. The paper is bright white just like the original paintings and it shows the colour and its subtle tints, hues and washes much better. The larger paint size means that nothing's reduced down to where you can't see the brushwork. On top of that there's additional material and more demonstrations. This is no longer a book that hints at what might be possible, but one which celebrates Jean's work and what can be done if you're brave with watercolour. The result is a triumph and something you'll want even if you have the first version.

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Artbookreview.net

Well, this is a first! I've seen books dragged out of well-deserved retirement, kept current by revamped covers and re-issued as "classics", but I've never seen one given a complete makeover that doubles the original extent.

I had reservations about this when it first appeared. It's not that it wasn't good, or that I didn't like it, just that I didn't feel that Jean's loose and somewhat idiosyncratic style fitted comfortably into a series of what were largely technical manuals. All that clearly didn't harm sales and Jean has, of course, gone on to become a bestselling and highly respected author. Later volumes have given her work the freedom it needs and it's blossomed as a result.

Re-workings of what for the moment we'll call juvenilia are rarely successful. Authors move on, their style develops and things that are largely historical are best left as pieces of history. If that means they're a footnote, so be it. It's often better than being something everyone comes to regret and has to make excuses for later.

And now, gentle reader, I'm going to eat my words: both my previous reservations and my suspicion of the re-vamp. This is everything the book should have been in the first place. It hasn't been shoe-horned into a series format, for a start. Series are great and are often a way of introducing new authors who may not have the gravitas to stand alone, but can be carried on by the momentum a series provides and given a toe-hold in the water (yes, I do know that's a mixed metaphor, but it was kind of you to mention it).

It's also been completely re-designed and there are vastly more illustrations. Now, it has room to spread its wings and to breathe, which is exactly what Jean's work needs. She's not about small illustrations that populate a detailed text, she's about illustrations, illustrations and illustrations. You need to see her work full-page and preferably on a crisp white background and that's what you have here. I haven't done a word-by-word comparison, but I'm pretty sure this is the original text and it now becomes an adjunct to the pictures, rather than the other way round. The best art books usually lead on the paintings and use the text just as a caption to explain what you're looking at when you need a nudge or it isn't immediately obvious.

This is a hard trick to pull off because, if the original book was any good, it'll have been properly put together and be a perfect sphere it's very hard to pull apart. No matter how much you want to, it is, as I've hinted above, usually better to leave well alone and start something new from scratch. So, congratulations to Search Press, whose editorial and design teams are on a bit of a roll at the moment, and to Jean too. With this many new illustrations, she's had a pretty large part in the exercise as well. You need this book.