WATERCOLOURS ON WATERPROOF PAPER WITH DELPHINE DUCHESNE

WATERCOLOURS ON PAPIER WATERPROOF WITH DELPHINE DUCHESNE, article published in the magazine Practical Arts No. 153, October/November 2020 and written by Vanessa Schmitz Grucker

Practice of the Arts has been the leading magazine for 15 years in all practices: sculpture, painting, engraving. It is intended to guide amateur and professional artists. It brings together a wealth of valuable information around art through videos, step by step, visits to workshops, technical files, presentation of artists, promotion of exhibitions and exhibitions.

This magazine brings together creators around common passions and no less than 11,000 subscribers follow its news. 

Vanessa Schmitz Grucker is an art critic, art journalist and author. She contributes to the magazines Novo and Diverti Edition.

She wrote “Artists at Work : Contemporary Art in Practice” by Eyrolles. 

I would therefore like to thank the magazine’s editors and Mrs Grucker for hearing my need to share my discoveries around innovative papers. For me, these are tomorrow’s papers and it’s already tomorrow !

For more than two years now, in the shadow of my studio, I experiment, I grope, I play sorcerer’s apprentices with pigments, different papers and all the painting techniques I practice, hard learned from professional painters during various internships.

I select my material based on the work I expect and the knowledge I have of it. 

Then I paint, I analyze, I compare the results, I write down in my notebook my various observations.

And then, one day when I felt I was pretty confident, I started offering watercolor courses that I called “watercolor otherwise”. 

Why watercolor otherwise, you will tell me?

Because I wanted to stand out from my peers, offer a new internship with confusing and unique learnings and above all I wanted to show and demonstrate that it was possible to push the limits of watercolor by changing material.

The technique and the requirement of watercolour are the same, what changes is the adaptation it requires and the open-mindedness that it requires. To get out of habits, to take a wrong path, to free oneself from the “what will we say” to dare to assert oneself and mark the difference.

Letting go is especially mandatory for experienced watercolorists.

So I dared and the lovers of novelties followed. Big thanks to them because I won my first challenge! 

The second challenge was to have works made on synthetic sheet and mineral sheet accepted by highly selective professional juries. 

This was done quickly since “The Tropical Rascasse”, 90×70 was selected by the organizers of the famous exhibition of water techniques and drawing, presented in Paris under the historic glass windows of the Grand Palais in February 2019 at ARTCAPITALE.

Work that gave the subject to long articles on the blog Designandpaper. Blog, which is written by THE company EUROPAPER in Vienna (Austria), present in 13 Eastern European countries and a member of the Heinzel Group. 

Then it was the turn of mineral paper to be honored at the European Cultural Heritage Fair in October 2019 with my work “Elusive octopus”, 90×70 in pastel colors. This exhibition brings 330 craftsmen to the Carrousel du Louvre in Paris to show off their skills.

The third challenge: to hang my fish in a place that is familiar to them. Case to follow 

In any case, I can say that success is at the rendezvous with these new papers with both trainees and art lovers since the public and sales are beautiful and well there.