カタリナ・アルケマーク from Sweden shares her favorite watercolor palette and techniques.

Here’s a quick Q&A with Catarina:

なぜあなたは芸術作品を制作するのですか？
I think I have something in me that makes me want to create things. I have done it my whole life. If it is not painting, it can be creating a garden.

絵を描き始めてどれくらいになりますか？
My whole life. My mother use to say that my best friend and I didn’t play when we were kids, we just drew and painted all day long. As an adult, I didn’t paint for about 10 years because we were busy starting a family and renovating an old house. Since 2016 however, I’ve been more dedicated to becoming a good painter.

あなたは正式な美術教育を受けましたか？
Unfortunately, no. When I finished high school in 1989, I attended an evening art course for beginners with my friend and we learned the basics. Otherwise I’m mostly self-taught. My friends and I used to meet every week to paint. I learned a lot about drawing, mixing colors and how the paint and paper worked together. I’m lucky to live in the same neighborhood as ジュリー・アン・カールソン そして アンダース・アンダーソン, who’ve introduced me to many other artists and whose weekend courses I’ve attended.

あなたはプロのアーティストですか、それとも趣味で活動しているアーティストですか？
I’m a hobbyist. I work full-time as an intensive care nurse.

Where do you look for inspiration?
I prefer to paint from places I’ve visited. The pictures need to tell a story. Instagram can be a source of beautiful photographs from around the world, if you can’t take your own photos (be sure to ask the photo owner for permission). A new color can also be a source of inspiration.

絵を描くときはどんな音楽を聴きますか？
Lots of soul and other music I listened to when I was young, mostly from the 80’s. Calm and soft or up-tempo songs, it doesn’t matter. I didn’t know how much I needed music while painting before the pandemic. My husband worked from home during those years, and I couldn’t play music because of his team meetings. I’ve also discovered that I probably always sing when I paint. My last painting, The Barber Shop in Rangoon, was painted while listening to Aretha Franklin.

あなたにはメンターがいましたか？
No, but among the painters I admire is Stanislaw Zoladz, a Swedish-Polish artist who can paint water as it really looks. Someday I will try to paint water like he does. I also like Marcos Beccari for his portraits and Iain Stewart for his buildings and street views. When I started to paint nighttime city views, I discovered John Salminen and Laurie Goldstein-Warren.

あなたは毎日絵を描きますか？
Before the pandemic, I painted almost every day. But with my work as an intensive care nurse, the last three years have been really challenging for my coworkers and me. Covid hit Sweden, especially my home region, really hard. During the first months it was a relief coming home to paint, but after a while I didn’t have any energy left to be creative. The second wave hit us harder than the first one did, so it has taken some time for me to heal. I just started to paint again last fall and now I’m able to feel pure joy again.

あなたは一度に1枚ずつ絵を描きますか、それとも同時に複数枚制作しますか？
I usually paint one at a time, working with reference photos.

あなたはスタジオで絵を描くのと、屋外で絵を描くのと、どちらが好きですか？
In my home studio because I paint on full sheets – the way I paint doesn’t fit with plein air.

基本色は何色使用しますか？
It depends on what I’m painting. If I paint city nights, I use オペラピンク そして フタロシアニンイエローグリーン (perfect for neon signs). コバルトティールブルー for cool lights and キナクリドンゴールド for warm lamplights. When I’m painting buildings, the PrimaTek colors like ピエモンタイト純正, セドナ純正, タイガーアイ本物, 本物のブラックトルマリン そして ソーダライト純正品 are perfect for roofs and facades of buildings.

I used to think that red was a difficult color, so I worked on learning how to paint with it. Now, reds are my favorite colors, particularly カドミウムレッドスカーレットの色合い そして マヤンオレンジ. Green is my next difficult color to master, so I think you will see lots of paintings with different greens in the future. When I worked weeks with night shifts, my gift to myself was buying new DANIEL SMITH watercolors. I don’t work night shifts anymore, but I have boxes full of beautiful colors. Lucky me!

チューブ型、フライパン型、それともスティック型？
Tubes and pans.

自分の作品が完成したと判断するのは、どのような時ですか？
When I’m bored with it. Every painting takes about 40-60 hours to paint, the last hours can be really dull. I place it on my son’s old bed for 3-4 weeks and look at it every day to see if I can find something missing – maybe a shadow or highlight. While I paint, I try to take photos. That’s a good way to see what’s needs fine-tuning.

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