The 1800s saw a boom in drawing and painting technique books specifically aimed at amateur women artists. Watercolour (often spelt ‘water colour’ with a space back then) was considered a ‘polite’ art, along with needlework, music and drawing - they were suitable pastimes for a Victorian woman. As a ‘clean’ medium only requiring water, it was in opposition to oil paint with its odours and turpentine solvents which did not fit the ‘female temperament’.
One such publication was George Brookshaw’s ‘A New Treatise on Flower Painting, or, Every Lady her own Drawing Master’, published in 1816, London. In it he describes the best colours to use for flower painting, how to mix them, exercises in linework control and example plates with guidelines to help the reader.
On reading the text, there’s some archaic terms like ‘pencil’ which originally meant a small paint brush. For modern readers this sentence below might be confounding:
The first lesson is in controlling strokes with colour loaded onto your brush:
Of the colours he recommends:
Vermillion, Lake, King’s Yellow, Gamboge, Yellow Oker (Ochre), Prussian Blue, Raw Terra de Siena, Burnt Terra de Siena, Burnt Umber, and Sap Green.
It’s worth noting that genuine Gamboge is toxic and Winsor & Newton stopped producing their genuine colour in 2005, replacing it with ‘New Gamboge’. It was again reformulated in 2013 when pigments became discontinued. Gamboge or King’s Yellow can be substituted with Turner’s Yellow (W&N) . ‘Lake’ can be substituted with Scarlet Lake (W&N).
You can download the whole book here.
Similar Books
Lessons in flower painting : a series of easy and progressive studies, drawn and coloured after nature : complete in six parts by Andrews, James, 1806-1876, Publication date 1836
Elements of drawing and flower painting in opaque and transparent water-colours by Perkins, E. E., Publication date 1834
Flower painting in water colours by Hulme, F. Edward (Frederick Edward), 1841-1909 Publication date 1880
The guide to flower painting in water colours : with illustrations by Rosenberg, George F. (George Frederic), 1825-1869 or 70. Publication date 1867
A series of progressive lessons intended to elucidate the art of flower painting in water colours. Publication date 1824
The young artist's guide to flower drawing, and painting in water colours : with instructions and examples by Edwards, W. H. (William Henry Camden), approximately 1773-1855, Publication date 1820
Further Reading
Ann Bermingham, Learning to Draw: Studies in the Cultural History of a Polite and Useful Art (New Haven, [Conn.]; London: Published for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art by Yale University Press, 2000)
Peter Bicknell and Jane Munro (eds), Gilpin to Ruskin: Drawing Masters and Their Manuals, 1800–1860 (Exhibition catalogue, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge 1987)
Francina Irwin, ‘Amusement or Instruction? Watercolour Manuals and the Woman Amateur’, Women in the Victorian Art World, ed. by Clarissa Campbell Orr (Manchester University Press, Manchester 1995)
Love the contrast of "watercolours are for women who shouldn't be exposed to harsh chemicals" into an author recommending a toxic pigment