Josep Tapiró y Baró was a Catalan painter active in the late 19th and early 20th century. He spent the latter part of his life in Morocco, and his watercolor portraits of some of the people there — dressed in their most colorful traditional garb — were quite popular for a time with European and American aficionados of Orientalist art.   ..read more

Karin by the Shore, Carl Larsson; watercolor, 29 x 21″ (75 x 54 cm). Link is to para on Wikipedia which links to high-res image file. There is also a zoomable version on Google Art Project. Original is in the Malmö Art Museum. Another of Swedish artist Carl Larsson’s delightful scenes of domestic life. In this one his wife, Karin, walks along the shore of the Sundborns river while their daughter, Brita, floats in a skiff with their dog. The credits list this as simply watercolor, but it looks to me like he’s used pen and ink as well.   ..read more

When the Children have Gone to Bed, Carl Larsson, ink and watercolor, roughly 12 x 17 inches (32 x 43 cm). Link is to image page on Wikimedia Commons. Original is in the NatinalMuseum, Stockholm. Another of Carl Larsson’s wonderful ink and watercolor domestic scenes. This was part of a series called “A Home”, based on his own home and family. I particularly like Larsson’s treatment of the lamp and its effects in the directional shadows of objects against the wall and the value statement of the faces.   ..read more

Ella Du Cane was a Victorian watercolorist known for her paintings of various parts of the world — in particular, her delicate watercolors that obviously carry the influence of the colorful Japanese woodblock prints that were becoming increasingly popular in Europe and the UK at the time. With her sister, Florence, Du Cane traveled to Japan and China, as wll as parts of Europe and the eastern Mediterranean.   ..read more

Quai de Valmy, Flight of the Raven, Jean-Pierre Gibrat; ink, watercolor and gouache on paper; roughly 25 x 20 inches ( 65 x 51 cm). Link is to listing on Christie’s auction, where the original art sold for almost 44,000 Euros (roughly $46,000). The listing desctiption is in Franch; (Google Translate to English here). This is the art from a single panel, part of a single page of a more than 100 page French graphic story (or bande-desinées — literally, “strip of drawings”) titled Flight of the Raven (link is to Amazon used listing). The Englich translation volume is unfortunately out of print ..read more

Joseph Zbukvic is a well known painter who is considered a modern master of watercolor, and I would add that within that discipline, he is also a master of suggestion. His paintings of urban scenes, rural landscapes, harbors, boats and many other subjects often appear rich with intricate detail, but on closer inspection reveal that he has skillfully prompted your mind’s eye to fill in much more detail than he has actually provided. Zbukvic works primarily with a muted palette, at times punctuating his compositions with brief passages of high chroma colors. If you search YouTube, you can find ..read more

While it’s not unusual for artists to transition from a career in commercial art to gallery art, English artist Richard Thorn came to painting from a career as a jazz musician. Thorn uses watercolor in a manner I particularly enjoy — lots of crisp, controlled edges balanced with softer ones and still maintaining a feeling of freely applied color. His compositions are filled with light and atmosphere, often eveoking the look of the countryside in strong light and shadow. Thorn’s website features work for sale as well as prints, and information about his instructional video course from Domesti ..read more

The Kangxi Emperor’s Southern Inspection Tour, Scroll Three: Ji’nan to Mount Tai, (detail), Wang Hui; ink and color on silk. In the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. This is just the beginning image from a hand scroll that is roughly 26 inches high and over 45 feet long (68 x 1394 cm). Wang Hui was a Chinese pinter active in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. The Met’s website includes an essay on Wang Hui and his place in the history of Chinese art. While most traditional Chinese ink painting is done in black and subtle variations of gray (which are often referred to as “co ..read more

Myles Birket Foster was a British painter, engraver and illustrator active during the mid to late 19th century. He worked primarily in watercolor, as well as engraving and drawing media. He was noted for his landscapes, a subject of his that I run hot and cold on. I like those that focus on the evocation of the natural world, and pull back from a large number of them that offer sentimental idealized scenes of rural life.   ..read more

Ian Sidaway is an English artist and author or illustrator of numerous books on art instruction. Working primarily in watercolor, Sidaway portrays the english countryside — and places to which he has traveled — with crisp, clear, naturalistic compositions that have a distinct feeling of atmosphere, time and place. In his books, he has been covering various techniques and mediums since the 1980s, with 32 titles currently to his name. His website offers galleries of both recent and older work. In the archive section, you can find a number of paintings from Venice. You can also find more images ..read more