Christopher Madden

watercolour

  • London Eye watercolour and ink sketch

    watercolour and ink sketch of the London Eye

    London Eye watercolour and ink sketch

    Watercolour and ink on Arches watercolour paper.    13x20cm.     11th June 2024

    A sketch of the London Eye.

    The line art was drawn first, using, appropriately, a Uni-ball Eye ballpoint pen. The ink in these pens is waterproof, so it was no problem to then add a blue watercolour wash over the drawing to create the sky.

    The sky was created using Sennelier cerulean blue watercolour. This colour is good for skies because it’s easy to lift the colour off the paper with a tissue or suchlike to create white clouds (and because it’s a nice colour).

    post content

  • Conic construction in a landscape

    contemporary art watercolour painting

    Conic construction in a landscape

    Watercolour and gouache with digital additions.      2023.

    A watercolour and gouache painting of a cone in a landscape, with additional features added digitally.
    The original watercolour painting was scanned to create a digital file to which additional features were then added in Adobe Photoshop. The digital additions were created as spontaneously as possible, without too much conscious consideration. The results are similar to other works that I have produced using the same process, but I suppose that’s only to be expected. Next time I’ll consciously try to do something different.
    The image partly resembles a creature of some sort, maybe with a beak and what may be an eye. If the white blob that may be an eye had a dot inside it, it would obviously be an eye, but it would lose some of its slightly sinister mystery.
    Maybe it’s not an eye at all. Maybe it’s a hole in the top of a wigwam. Those straight lines protruding from the top of the cone look a bit wigwamy now I come to look at them.

    post content

  • Watercolour study: stability and uncertainty

    Contemporary watercolour study of stability and uncertainty image

    Stability and uncertainty: watercolour study

    Watercolour on paper. 20 x 20cm. 2018

    A watercolour painting created as part of a series exploring the depiction of simple, precise geometric forms (such as the triangle here) using techniques that introduce imprecision to the geometry of the image.
    A study of order, stability, uncertainty and potential disintegration.

    post content