Recommended Artist: Alvaro Castagnet

  Among the few Artists whom I really look up to and strive to learn from, is Alvaro Castagnet. He is one of my idols in the Art world. Refer to my full list of Art idols here.

  He is a waterclorist, and a brilliant one at that. I found him through a book.

This painting Times Square, New York was awarded the 1st prize in 2012 at the 

3rd Annual Signature American Watercolor Exhibition.

  Now, I would like to talk about his book; Beyond Technique, Painting with Passion. As I said, I found him through this book, and it was the Art work, his Art work that I saw in this book that caught my attention.

  Reviews about the book say that it's nice and all, but that there isn't enough demonstration in the book. May I just turn your attention to the book title: "Beyond Technique". The book does not focus on technique. It focuses on your passion for watercolors. If you look at it this way, I feel there is a generous enough section of photographs of his Art Work to work well.

  His paintings have an emotional conection to the viewers, or me, for that matter. There's a sort of rawness to his paintings that I really enjoy. Watercolor is meant to be bold and free, and Alvaro Castagnet does exactly so.

  I strive to be bold with my colors like him, and to learn to draw the subjects with as much passion as he does. He made it to "The List" because he has a great underlying understanding of form and structure, and knows how to reduce details for the sake of a great painting. (Something that Artists forget a lot.)

Here is his Art blog.


BONUS!
  I looked around the net to get information on him and I might have found an unofficial list of the colors he uses. They are:-

1. Ultramarine Blue
2. Cobalt Blue
3. Cerulean Blue
4. Cobalt Turquoise
5. Burnt Umber
6. Permanent Alizarin Crimson
7. A certain Lilac / Lavender
8. An shade of Light Red
9. Brown Madder
10. Burnt Sienna
11. Yellow ochre
12. Cadmium red light
13. Neutral Tint
14. Cobalt Violet
15. Indian yellow
16. Viridian