Abstract Landscapes by English Painter Dolores Phelps
In this interview I chat with watercolor painter Dolores Phelps, based in The Forest of Dean, England. Dolores creates vivid, abstract landscapes inspired by the English countryside. She considers nature to be her starting point - open fields, rolling hills, and majestic forests serve as inspiration for her dynamic compositions. From bright pops of color to accidental marks, blurred lines, and areas where multiple colors bleed into each other, Dolores's stunning watercolors celebrate and embrace the creative process.
Hi Dolores! Tell me about your background and where your creative journey began.
I’m from west London originally, with bohemian parentage about which I could write a book, but no room here! I have been creating art since childhood in the 1960s and always said ‘when I grow up I will be a famous artist’. I went to art school as soon as I could, at 16 – perhaps too young! and after a two year foundation course defied my tutors, who advised I study fine art, to enroll in a graphic arts degree. I didn’t much like the idea of the elitist art market, and liked popular culture and music - I also loved the graphic posters of Abram Games and A M Cassandre, so I thought I could design record sleeves and book jackets for a living! After graduating, I got some magazine design jobs but wasn’t very happy, so I became an illustrator. I was very happy and successful at this during the 80s - there was a boom in illustration at the time, but this fell off around the turn of the 90s with a financial crash in the UK. I moved to the Forest of Dean where my husband was born, started a family and have been teaching art, design and illustration part-time ever since. I started painting in watercolours around 2006, feeling that I wanted to create a more meaningful and lasting body of work that would perhaps fulfill my childhood ambition of becoming a painter at last.
What led you to focus on landscape painting?
I am incredibly lucky to live in not only a beautiful forest, but within a short distance of the mountain ranges of South Wales, the Malvern Hills, the Wye Valley and I have relatives that have a farm on Bodmin Moor in Cornwall.
Wherever I find myself, I am in the midst of a beautiful landscape. I love responding to the hills and trees in an abstract way and developing the endless colour and texture shifts of what is before me into strong, dynamic compositions.
Your paintings verge on abstraction, while still referencing familiar places: forests, open fields, and rolling hills. How did you arrive at your current painting style?
I am an aspiring abstract painter, but I need to have a starting point; that’s why the hashtag “abstractlandscape” is one of the ones I use most often. I can’t say I have arrived anywhere exactly yet stylistically! When I paint, I want to focus on the gestural, the flow, and let the painting ‘paint itself’ so to speak. I love the work of Paul Jenkins, an Abstract Expressionist painter of the 1960s, and would love to be able to throw the paint across larger surfaces. So I guess my focus is to be intuitive, and allow accidents to happen, lose control in order to regain it, and continually try new things; but there always has to be an inspiration from nature.
Many of your paintings are composed of bright, vivid colors. Can you tell me about your color palette and the role it plays in your work?
Many of your paintings are composed of bright, vivid colors. Can you tell me about your color palette and the role it plays in your work?
I just love colour and find it impossible not to use extremely bright colours such as Opera Rose and pure cobalt blue even in an autumn scene! I try to discipline myself and use limited palettes, but usually end up adding colours until there is a rainbow on the paper. When I can control myself, my go-to colour has to be Indigo. The range and depth of that colour is all you need to create beautiful images, and I always use it when painting outdoors as a tonal base; hills, clouds, sea – it does everything!
I have the great good fortune to have been gifted a large number of watercolour paints made at the old Winsor and Newton factory in Harrow, north-west London before it was sadly closed down. These colours are my joy and I could spend hours experimenting with different mixtures and testing them on little cards and strips of paper. I especially like mixing in extra gum arabic or some clay powder which changes the texture, sheen or graininess of the watercolour. Lately I have been obsessed with Winsor Blue Green Shade – a marvellous blue for skies – and mixing maroons and greys that have fringes of colour when they dry. Quinacridone Gold and Opera Rose are wonderful mixers because they separate out on the paper when mixed with, say, Cerulean blue. I could go on…
How has your art practice evolved over the years?
I think I am a bit of a slow learner when it come to my ambitions to be more abstract in my work. I tend to go through phases where it becomes more representational - especially when painting trees, they are extremely hard to make abstractions from - but I really think it is due to the fact that I have up until now been pursuing different strands of my art career as a teacher, academic and illustrator. It is probably the worst time to do this, with the world in a very uncertain state and a severe recession forecast, but I am going to give up my academic teaching job and illustration practice and focus solely on my art. I’m sure this will help me find my mature style as I will be able to focus on where my art needs to go. I feel I am very much, still a beginner, but I’m sure I will always feel like this – it is a journey.
Do you paint outdoors, from photographs, or a combination of both?
Don’t get me started on photographs! David Hockney used photographs for much of his life, but then completely gave them up. I take many photos, as things like beautiful cloudscapes and sunsets need to be captured, but I never work from photos directly. I used to, and I still have some larger works from a few years ago that were based on photo reference, but I’m not so keen on them. I find they don’t have the freedom of expression that I am after. My recent cloudscapes are now invented, as are most of my landscapes, they are designed to be evocations rather than copies. It means that I can’t always paint accurate and recognisable local scenes that may sell well, but I’m hoping that if my work evokes a place that is familiar to the beholder, that will work out - and in fact, someone recently bought a red mountain scene as it reminded them of the hill behind their house…in the USA!
I sketch outdoors whenever I can. It’s so important to practice where the sensory input is direct and you are able to tune in to the colours and textures which a photograph cannot capture. Although I’m terribly short-sighted I am lucky enough to have more colour receptors in my eyes than any camera. I know this because any photographs I take simply do not show the colours I see! I use the sketches to inspire studio works and also help me stay loose.
When did you join Instagram, and how has it impacted your art career?
My first post was in May 2018, and in that time I have organically grown my following to 12.5k. At the beginning I didn’t know what to do but a few people really helped me - liked every one of my posts right from the beginning, commented on them and encouraged me. (I’d like to shout out especially to @gambrell_ and @dahrendavey – you guys are the BEST!) I learned to do milestone giveaways and other things to boost followers, and I was lucky enough to be featured on @best_watercolors about a year ago which gave me an enormous boost. It’s such a supportive community, I have never had a negative comment, trolls seem almost unknown on the platform. At this moment in time, before I get my website going, this and my Facebook page, which I am terrible at keeping up (as I don’t get on with Facebook at all!) are my only online presence so it is very important to me. Instagram helps me so much – I can review all my work in chronological order, it’s like a visual journal and portfolio in one, get feedback on what works and what doesn’t. I’m also posting work under the #artsupportpledge hashtag – this is an amazing and successful initiative instigated by @matthewburrowsstudio to help artists support each other.
What is your greatest accomplishment as an artist thus far, and what are your future goals and aspirations?
Though I’ve been painting landscapes for over fourteen years I feel I am only now approaching a rough idea of where I want to be. I’ve had a couple of solo shows, and I used to exhibit and sell in local cafes and venues, but I decided in 2018 to devote myself to the online marketing of my art. My most encouraging achievement is having built up my Instagram following and being able to read the supportive comments and feedback on my work from all the wonderful people who care about what I do. It’s so nice to look at it every day, especially if my confidence is at a low! I’ve made contacts and sold paintings directly from IG, and I love to answer questions and give advice to anyone who wants it.
My main priority right now is to commit 100% to my art practice. This will also involve creating a more convincing online presence, with a website and email list. It seems my supporters and followers would like to see me provide more online tutorials and demonstrations, this is something I also need to focus on and I’m really excited about the future possibilities of this.
Of course my number one goal is to be able to support myself and my practice through my art. I’m a long way off that right now but it is essential for me to become a self-funded, professional artist if I am to continue for any significant time in the future. Wish me luck!
Follow Dolores on Instagram at: doloresphelpswatercolours