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David Hockney
is one of Britain's most celebrated - and outspoken - artists with
a pedigree of founding the Pop Art movement of the 1960s.
But despite his
fame and fortune he has taken up a new challenge and plunged himself
into learning a different medium - watercolours.
The 65-year-old
took himself off to Iceland and Norway as part of the experiment,
capturing scenes which he believes a camera cannot do justice to
- despite being a respected photographer himself.
Sensitive
By switching techniques
from oil to watercolours, Hockney had to learn a new way of painting,
one which does not allow for mistakes.
"One of
the advantages is that it is sensitive to what you do with your
hands," he said, "There was a certain appeal there
that I thought the strokes of the hands should be visible."
And there is evidence
of this in the pictures, where a splash of paint and even a thumb
print have become part of the work of art.
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'Fjord'
displays Hockney's technique of using paper joins as part
of the picture
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"Individual
peculiarities"
Hockney also had
to discover a new way to create large, full-length portraits for
watercolours.
He opted to split
the painting into four, using separate pieces of paper and slotted
them together when finished.
All his subjects
sat in the same swivel office chairs for their sitting and chose
their own clothes to wear, with Hockney seeking out their "individual
peculiarities".
The series of portraits
includes Glyndebourne opera impresario Sir George Christie
and his wife Mary and Hockney's friend Barry Humphries.
Also
on show are sketches which form a diary of Hockney's stay in London
after years in California.
See more of Hockney's watercolours
here
The portraits go on show at the National
Portrait Gallery, in Trafalgar Square, from Thursday, January
16 until June 29.
On
Friday 17th, the landscapes and further portraits go on show at
Annely Juda Fine Art, in Dering Street, W1.
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David Hockney was born in Bradford in 1937.
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