Charles Evans - Watercolour Artist
Known for his humour and time-saving watercolour painting techniques, be sure to follow him on Twitter @CharlesEvansArt
Charles Evans was born and bred as a country boy in 1953 in the then West Riding of Yorkshire, and had the privilege of a childhood spent playing in the fields and woods, rivers and lakesides around the farm where he was born and brought up. This fuelled an already inbred appreciation of the countryside, and the wonders and workings of it. Like most kids, Charles Evans art career started with drawing and playing with coloured pencils, but even then he was always striving to make his drawings better, and unlike most kids whose heroes were Batman and Superman and so forth, his heroes were Turner, Flint and Constable. Charles would wonder at the magic, mood and atmosphere that Turner managed to get into his skies, and marvelled how Constable managed to get the effect of his trees.
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Charlie’s education and watercolour art beginnings
After a fairly conventional schooling, Charles studied at Lincoln College of Art and finally turned to the medium of watercolour. Watercolour is the traditional English medium because, as many artists have discovered, it captures the beautiful sense of atmosphere, haziness, dampness and watery skies of the British landscape. In the mid seventies there was no living to be made out of such art, so Charles turned his attention to catering in which he had a long and successful career. Whilst still working in that trade, he was commissioned by the National Coal Board, as it was then, to paint a series of paintings of pits and pit villages. This led to a very long and fruitful alliance with the Coal Board and they would commission paintings of either dark and gloomy pit scenes, or dark overcast moorland scenes. Many of these paintings were presented to prominent MP’s of the time who visited various pit situations. The Coal Board also sponsored my first one-man exhibition held at the Headrow Gallery, Leeds, in 1983. It was opened by the Lord Mayor of Leeds and featured on Yorkshire Television. This resulted in all 69 paintings being sold at preview. After that he held successful one-man or mixed exhibitions up and down the country.
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Charlie’s early TV career
In 1998 Charles was commissioned by Yorkshire Television to do a brooding type moorland scene for their TV soap “Emmerdale”. This he did under the scripted name of ‘Nathan Summers’. After this he was asked by Tyne Tees Television to do a short series of painting programmes for their regional series. Charles made the first three and these proved to be so successful that they made a further nine. He made in total 96 of those little programmes for Tyne Tees TV, they eventually went to half hours and now the half hour programmes are now being made for Discovery Real Time. These are going out not only all over the UK but all over Europe and he regularly feedback from such places as Netherlands, Portugal, and even Australia! Charles can also be seen regularly on the Ideal World Shopping channel, Create and Craft. In addition to the TV work, he has been well known in recent years for his long running series in various glossy art magazines.
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Demonstrating Winsor & Newton
As well as being on TV, Charles is now one of the leading demonstrators for Winsor & Newton and demonstrate all over the country. He is also making videos for a company called Teaching Art and has recently ventured into producing his own videos and DVD’s specifically for the UK, Japanese, German, Italian and Netherlands markets. Charles now lives in the wilds of Northumberland, writing, doing stage shows, workshops and demonstrating to art societies all over the country as well as holding painting holidays in the UK and Europe.
Connect with Charles on the internet
Charles has several websites and social media accounts, use these links to connect with him:
Charles Evans watercolour painting books
[table id=1 filter=”Charles Evans” hide_columns=”4,5″ show_rows=”1,2,3,6″ responsive=”all” /] My watercolour book library here>
Charles Evans watercolour painting DVD’s
[table id=2 filter=”Charles Evans” hide_columns=”4,5″ show_rows=”1,2,3,6″ responsive=”all” /] My watercolour DVD library here>
Extract from Charlie’s DVD – Quick & Clever Watercolour Landscapes with Charles Evans
Check out other inspiring watercolour instruction videos on this Charles Evans YouTube search here>
About Ian
Watercolour and pencil artist, passionate about drawing and painting the world around me in watercolour, and using social media to share my story. Join in and take part in my journey by using the links below.