Gord Jones – Friday Night Guest – November 5, 2021

(Submitted by Iona Bertrand)

Gord Jones is a watercolourist who lives in Haliburton [Algonquin Highlands], from where he derives his inspiration. His use of transparent watercolours allows him to transpose the light and shadow of the landscape in order to communicate with the viewer and elicit an emotional response.

Gord paints mostly in his studio, starting with a reference photo that he feels free to tweak. He makes a 3-value sketch of the scene, working out the composition and the planes of depth [foreground, middle and background], feeling free to depart from the photographed image throughout the painting process, which seldom takes him longer than one hour. Gord likes to let the colours mix on the paper, exploits the obtained effects and reacts to the process.

For details about the materials he uses, check out this video: vimeo.com/477403112

In his demo of a winter scene for DVAC, Gord sketched a simplified composition, then wet the paper in random brush strokes with very light washes of aureolin yellow, alizarin crimson and cobalt blue to suggest reflected light on snow. When dry, he painted the sky and directional shadows in 3 different blues [warm, neutral and cool] with different brushes, varying the hard and softened edges. He then proceeded to paint the landscape from background towards the foreground.

While he started the painting with light, transparent brushstrokes, Gord used much thicker paint for the river, a scraper and rigger brush for the trees, and dry brush for the winter foliage. He finished with a few [opaque] white specks and spatters.

Gord explained throughout the demo his process and the choices he made, illustrating vividly why less is more, especially in a wintry scene. The 60 DVAC members who followed the presentation then had the opportunity to ask questions and hear more about the artists who guided and inspired Gord, his artistic development, career, and why he settled on watercolour painting in the end.

Check out his website for upcoming online workshops at https://www.watercoloursbygordjones.com/click-for-news—workshops-etc.html

Thank you, Gord, for a masterful and inspiring demonstration!