Exploring Watercolour at the Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge with AccessArt

The two resources below document a session run by AccessArt in partnership with Kate Noble from the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge which enabled teachers to explore watercolour painting.

The session presented a unique opportunity for teachers to see close-up some watercolour landscape painting from the Fitzwilliam collection, and to examine how the paintings were made. This was followed by a practical studio session which gave teachers the chance to explore watercolour for themselves.

The two resources below aim to share the sessions in such a way that other teachers can learn the same skills, in their own time and space. The Fitzwilliam Museum has kindly given permission for the images used to be printed for use in schools.

part 1: Introduction to Watercolour

The resource describes and demonstrates individual watercolour techniques, and then shows examples of these techniques in paintings from the Fitzwilliam Collection.

part 2: Exploration of Watercolour in the studio

After studying paintings from the collection at first hand and identifying how various marks within the paintings may have been made, teachers undertake their own exploration of working with watercolour.

‘Dawn Chorus’ by Marcus Coates

A Wealth of Materials in Scrapstores

printmaking with salvaged sticky back aluminium foil, mixed media and cardboard

Make a sketchbook, an ideas book or a travel journal this summer!

pattern and collage a whole school workshop at monkfield primary school

Sculptural Birds in Flight by Teenage Makers

Articulated and Animated Drawings by Teenagers at AccessArt’s Experimental Drawing Class

A Model Studio by Susie Olczak

Making Sea Sculptures at Culford School, Suffolk

Inspired by Joseph Cornell: Making a Decorative Aviary Box

Brave Young Makers: Year Three Pupils at Ridgefield Primary Transform materials into Birds and Insects

Printmaking with Salvaged Sticky Back Aluminium Foil, Mixed Media and Cardboard

Transformation Project: Snippets of Inspiration

Megan Boyd

Scottish Fishing Fly Maker

In a cottage in northern Scotland, Megan Boyd twirled bits of feather, fur, silver and gold into elaborate fishing flies — at once miniature works of art and absolutely lethal. Wherever men and women cast their lines for the mighty Atlantic salmon, her name is whispered in mythic reverence, and stories about her surface and swirl like fairy tales. With breathtaking cinematography and expressive, hand painted animation, Kiss the Water adheres to and escapes from traditional documentary form, spinning the facts and fictions of one woman’s life into a stunning film about craft, devotion, love, and its illusions.
Enjoy the preview of Kiss the Water below – the film is sure to inspire.