Artist Analysis- Sarah Watson

Sarah Watson was born in Rutland in1972. She graduated from De Montfort University with a First-Class degree in Combined Arts in 1994. After this she worked for 15 years in the music industry and now focuses on her ar

t. Sarah has displayed her art in a number of exhibitions: ‘The Lakes: Landscape and Abstraction’, ‘Landscape, Abstraction, Life’ and ‘Femmes of the Fen’.

‘Wonky dogs’ is a business that Watson created when she noticed a lack of animal portraiture commissions for animal owners and lovers. This is what I’m focusing on for my art work as I am basing my project on animals. She mostly draws dogs which links to me as I have had a strong love for dogs my whole life and currently own a dog. I was drawn to her work as she leans to abstraction and this is a style I’ve never worked in, I feel like working in this style has pushed my art skills.

This is the main piece I am looking at. I feel it is a good example of her work. It doesn’t have a title but is done on a4 sized paper. In this piece and all of her others she uses pen to create a loose outline and then uses watercolour to add colour to the drawing. Watson aims to capture the personality of the animal in her drawings and does this by asking for 3 words that describes the pet e.g. energetic, silly and loving. Watson doesn’t use just black pain here. She uses different tones of grey and browns which allows her to create more shadows and highlights. This gives the overall drawing more contrast. Watson creates more detail in the face of the dog than anywhere else which draws your eyes straight to the dogs face.

Watson uses watercolour very loosely, it gives the drawings more life along with how she creates loose pen lines. This drawing in particular is quite simplistic compared to some of her other drawings like the one below. I think the negative white space she has used works well and keeps the drawing from being overcomplicated.

In this second drawing, Watson has used different marks to create the same look as dog fur. She uses quick strokes with the brush to create straight, long fur and creates curls and waves to recreate curly dog fur. She has used darker paint to create shadows and uses negative space to create highlights which gives the drawing a lot of contrast. This drawing is less abstract than her last piece and she uses more colour. As well as the grey tones, she uses a brown colour to create more dimension. Again, Watson doesn’t just use black paint and instead uses different tones to make it more lifelike.

Other than ‘Wonky Dogs’ Watson draws mainly landscapes. She draws them from how she sees them in front of her ‘en plein air’. She creates the same simple but descriptive marks that she uses in her dog caricatures. She uses a mixture of oil sticks and pastels. How she draws them and what colours she uses depends on her mood, which is also something I do in my work. This drawing in particular is from the lake district and is titled ‘Towards Home Illgill Head’.

In my work, I have strayed away from dogs as Watson has done partially. I have started to draw things like zoo animals and birds in Watson’s style. I think other animals in this style have more life and dimension. In this duck drawing, Watson has drawn the entire animal unlike her dog caricatures. To draw your eye to the front of the duck she has used more tone on the face of it. She has also used more lines at the front of the duck. With the duck, underwater she has added more detail on the part of the duck out of the water. She has drawn the head of the duck but it is the last thing your eye is drawn to. Watson has also used blue and pink colours to create the illusion of water. She has also used pen to create lines that look like water.