• His website is at www.jameslewisart.co.uk
• He is self-taught – he started by looking at the paintings of local artist Alan Kingwell – see www.alankingwell.co.uk– and copying them. By doing this he learned how to create an image, and he gradually developed his own style. 
• He looks to convey movement and light
• See A5 sketchbook 1 for detailed notes on colours and techniques used

Demonstration image created:

The thing which struck me most about his demonstration was the care and hours he has clearly spent in observing a difficult subject, moving water. He did not paint from a reference photo; it came out of his head onto a blank canvas. He was very clear on how he wanted colour gradations, light direction and shadow and highlights. I know I am very reliant at the moment on having an object, person or scene in front of me from which to draw – I need to work a lot more on looking around me more carefully and analyse what I am seeing so that I can generalise and hence invent realistically as he has.

Katy began with a brief history of colour.

• Until the 17^thcentury, there was a 4-colour theory from which all other colours were allegedly derived: black, white, red and yellow (no blue) – this fell in with the pattern of the times where lots of things were supposed to go in fours e.g. the humours.
• In 1664 the scientist Robert Boyle wrote his “Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours”, which said that the 5 basic colours were black, white, red, blue and yellow
• “Werner’s Nomenclature of Colour” (current edition 2018, pub by Natural History Museum) was handed round – the original edition (1814) was taken by Darwin on the Beagle to help him with identification of exact hues on the animals and plants he found
• Colours have been demonstrated to affect our mood. An experiment by Baker and Miller (in charge of a prison in Seattle) was carried out, whereby they painted a holding cell in the prison in pink and found that violence disappeared – this became known as Baker-Miller Pink.
• In the late 18^thcentury, Indian yellow became available. In 1883, Joseph Hooker investigated its origins, and found out that it was basically boiled urine of cows from Bengal who were fed on mango leaves.
• Ultramarine blue was originally made from lapis lazuli from Afghanistan, and was very expensive. People began to use a cheaper alternative – smot- made from cobalt ground glass – but this was less good as it eventually fades to an orangey-yellow.
• In 1512, the colour orange stopped being called yellow-red with the advent of actual oranges from abroad.
• Purple was produced from rotting shellfish – it was a long process and therefore very expensive.
• In 1853, about half of hospital admissions were for ague; the treatment for this was quinine, but again, this was very expensive, and a Professor von Hoffman set his student, William Perkin, to find a cheaper alternative. He researched with coal tar, and unexpectedly ended up with a flask of bright purple liquid (aniline dye) – this was the first synthetic dye.
• Brown dye appeared on the market from Egypt – called Mummy (literally….)
• The blackest manufactured black is Vantablack (developed by Surrey NanoSystems in the UK), absorbing 99.96% of visible light. It is not readily available, however, as it has been licensed to Anish Kapoor.

Katy went on to demonstrate the dyeing process she uses (with Procion MX dyes in an alkaline environment created by soda-ash).

She had made the point beforehand that it matters which hues you choose when mixing colours, and went on to create a very pleasing colour wheel by mixing magenta, cerulean and lemon yellow in various proportions.

She dyes fabrics and thread, both of which she sells, and belong to the Embroiderers’ Guild – she is currently involved in designing and creating works for the National Trust depicting the history of Cotehele House in Cornwall.