Watercolour artist Jean Haywood
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| Jean Haywood at home working on a sketch that she finished at this year’s Paint the Heartland. |
Many readers will know Jean Haywood as one of the founders of the annual Paint the Heartland festival in Hartland NB in which she has also taken part as an artist for the last 15 years. By day she is the manager of the Hartland library.
Largely self-taught, her intricate watercolour-washed pen and ink drawings, widely on display in venues such as the O’Toole Gallery in Grafton NB and her own Wildewood Studio in Victoria Corner, are unmistakable. She has a unique focus on many of the things close at hand that we may customarily take for granted: the interior timber framing of the covered bridge in Hartland, for instance, or the rustic charm of an old, abandoned house in Newburg. Many say that the role of art is to make one look anew at the commonplace and Jean makes us do just that.
When did you start drawing?
I’ve been a doodler since I was a child and was fortunate to have the now internationally-famous artist Robert Bateman as my high school art teacher in Burlington, Ontario. He helped me become interested in the Group of Seven painters and he even led a school tour to Canoe Lake in Algonquin Park where Tom Thomson [one of the Group] painted ─ and died mysteriously. All that really fired my imagination and helped me see the art in nature.
Did you start drawing in pen and ink?
I actually began with acrylic paints but after I took a watercolour workshop at the community college in Woodstock, I found watercolour a much easier medium to work with. There’s so much more you can do with it ─ control it or not, be soft or be bold ─ and I like the surprise of watercolour.
A lot of your work seems to be inspired by architecture.
That’s true. But at the last Paint the Heartland, I worked on a couple of pieces. One was a version of the covered bridge interior and that’s somewhat architectural but I also did a still life of daisies. My very first pen and ink drawings were of animals. Then I started looking for things with definite patterns and shapes. That’s why I like architecture.
Tell me more about the process.
Well, let’s look at the covered bridge piece. When it was closed for repairs, I went in and took a lot of photographs, looking for different perspectives. I selected one angle, drafted it in pencil and then drew it with permanent ink. After that, I mapped out my colours with watercolour pencils and, finally, enriched it with watercolour wash.
How long did that take?
The pen and ink part took about a month on and off. The watercolour wash, working on each beam separately, took a few days.
That’s a lot of time but it seems to me that your work is very modestly priced.
The original bridge art sold for about $130. You just can’t price yourself out of the market locally. But I retain all rights to the original so that I can copy it on to cards or prints and even scallop shells.
Living hereabouts for 37 years, you must have seen a lot of change.
There’s quite a large creative community in the area and I've seen quite a bit of development just in the last five years. It’s amazing the talent we have here and there’s certainly more cultural awareness in the community. There’s much more happening, more galleries and more diversity. That’s partly due to newcomers who share new ideas.
I suppose that most artists feed off one another’s energy?
In a manner of speaking, yes. Years ago I joined the Woodstock Art Club and I remember how scared I was at first. But it helped me build confidence. Now I realize that when artists get together we all get invigorated. They may see the world in much the same way or at the very least they share your passion and excitement.
Does your own passion for art rule your life?
Definitely. I almost always have at least two pieces on the go and I’m thinking about my next ones simultaneously.
I spend my leisure time drawing
the way other people knit.