A Personal Interview Reveals Alvaro’s Secrets 

8 Question Interview

#1. When you look at a scene, how do you know it will make a good painting?

ALVARO: it starts with a feeling…..I see the light, shapes and i get an instant idea about the focal point (story) I really enjoy the challenge of choosing a mundane scene, and turning it into a powerful work of art. Imagination and seeing the painting almost finished in my mind, without even starting, is a real trigger. That´s why I always say that you start painting at the moment you look at the subject.

#2. There is a point when you have to “let go”, when do you know that the painting is finished?

ALVARO: You know the painting is finished when the final result matches your original idea that you had in mind before you started. That is why I say it is so important to see your painting clearly in your mind and heart before you start. Then again, you feel intuitively you are arriving to final stages when the painting matches your first idea. Beyond that, there is always a feeling, a perception, that you are arriving to the final stages, and that obeys to your unique and individual insight that speaks to you at the end.

#3. How do you manage to create such lively atmospheres in your paintings?

ALVARO: Working with a limited palette for unity, selecting hues that best recreates the ambiance, the mood, you are upon to express. It is very important to have a clear and powerful message. To think and use the combination of shapes, lines and focal point for maximum impact. Working with elegance and finesse on the hard and soft edges, and of course, good and confident brushstrokes!

#4. When painting outdoors, are there any particular anecdotes or stories that you may have happened during your painting sessions?

ALVARO: I have lots! Birds droppings in my painting as I was doing it. My easel falling entirely into a Scottish river, with one of my paintings, almost done. Once in Venice, “the Carabinieri” took me to the police station for painting and presumably selling my work to people on the streets! Which is forbidden! However after quite a bit of time deliberating, not only they set me free, but also the “big boss” wanted to “buy” my painting as it was a view of his grandmother‘s house!!! Very funny and …..incredible! And the latest one, painting in San Francisco: I was all set up, with my easel, water container, all the bits and pieces etc, concentrated into my chosen subject, enjoying my brushstrokes, when suddenly a massage parlour owner, comes out of her shop screaming at me, trying to get me to move as I was blocking her front door, and customers could not come in, many hands in the air, words and gestures; I could not calm her down, not even with my promise of returning as a customer! Once I have finished my painting….of course!!!!!! ha, ha.

#5. Do you have a basic palette of colours you work with or does your choice of colours vary with the subject?

ALVARO: I have my own selection of colours that I use all the time. I stick to them and I know them well, the point is to mix them in different proportions, according to the light and mood of the subject. The moment you have a warm and a cool primary plus a set of other few hues to compliment them, then you can paint anything you wish! The possibilities of mixing primaries, secondaries, tertiaries, etc., among themselves are infinite, so I don’t really need to add more colors according to the subject or geography. My basic palette colours are Ultramarine Blue, Cerulean Blue, Cobalt, Alizarin Crimson, Cadmium Red Light, Cadmium Yellow, Yellow Ochre, Burnt Sienna, and Chinese white!

#6. Are there any tips on painting that you could give our readers?

ALVARO: Not to think too much about the subject itself. The moment you start painting is best to liberate yourself from logical and literal information of the subject. Feel free, be artistic, be in charge, the rules are yours. The subject is only the first source, after that, you should enter a “plateau” of illusions and desires and the only one that governs the painting is the painter himself!! After all, as I often say, “A painting does not exist! It is only an illusion!!

#7. What are the characteristics of the watercolour art market in America?

ALVARO: I feel it is evolving dramatically nowadays, we are counting with 100% cotton paper that is acid free, we can buy it in big rolls, we can paint in large sizes. Our colours offer a great range of hues, and most are perennials, they last forever, all this plus the modernism that young and new generations brings along, are creating a resurgence of this lovely medium. Consequently I see in America a growing amplitude for work on paper, specially watercolours. What we need now, it is not so much more colours or better tools, but more “lovers”. If this beautiful medium is to make it further and keep on developing, we need more appreciation and knowledge of it, not only for the American market, but yet the world!

#8. What are your views on watercolour? Are there artists, living or past, that you particularly admire?

ALVARO: Everything is very dynamic nowadays. I do admire watercolorists from the past, like Sargeant, Constable, Turner, Albert Durero, Homer, and many others. If I have to choose one that I deeply admire is the American watercolorist Andrew Wyeth. His paintings even though, are very obvious. They always have such an immense power and mood. Precisely because of this reasons he developed a “bypass” to illustrations, all his painting have such a mood and atmosphere that we forget details! We succumb to the inherent beauty and ambiance of it. I found his paintings strong, muted in colours but always with a dash of bright colour in a precise spot, his darks are extremely powerful and meaningful. The Chinese watercolorists are also extremely good, and so many to mention, but if I could only name a few, Liu Yi, Liu Changming, Guan Weixing, Paul Ching Bor, who now lives in New York.

Well, I hope you enjoyed this interview. I would really like to hear from you, let me know what interest you so I can write to you about it!!!

OVERVIEW 25×40″

Alvaro & Ana in Shanghai

Shanghai

NEW

PAINTING AWARD

Time Square-NY

1st Award Winner

for the

3rd Annual

Signature American Watercolor Exhibition

at the

Fallbrook Art Center

presented by

Juror Ted Nuttall, AWS, NWS

“There were about 70 paintings between the NWS and AWS plus the signature show so there were a lot to look at…The people that spoke to me about Alvaro’s painting were really wowed by it. I agreed, but I’m probably a bit biased. It was interesting comparing the paintings and seeing some that were well executed but lacked the spark that made them winners.”

- Barbara Fudurich

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“Painting is the amalgamation of elements that communicate an idea, a feeling, a mood – and this has to be done with passion!”

- Alvaro Castagnet

What Sustains a Good Painting?
It is essentially in the following order – for importance:

1. COLOR – Scenes with the manipulation of color. It is a tool artists have to achieve and capture mood, ambiance, a feeling. Color is one of the things in visual art that impacts people the most. We always see color first, before the object, and then the shape in part by the object, then consequently we read it as what the subject is.

2. VALUES – With values we create a three-dimensional feel of something on a two-dimensional element, like a piece of paper is. With values, we conquer any object, any light, any depth. Is an extremely important tool for an artist to manipulate in order to create luminosity, depth, volume in a painting.

3. SHAPES – We are coordinating different shapes in a painting for maximum impact. Following this way of thinking as a minimalist, in a very simplistic fashion, pretending to presume what the whole complexity of what painting is into four major points, I have to say that as far as design is concerned, there is a department that belong to the coordinating of shapes.

When I see a painting to be done, and a painting that I am contemplating to do, I always go into shapes. There are three major shapes in a strategy to paint: big, small and medium, that we have to coordinate them in a fashion that creates impact, homogeneity and dynamics to the painting. I believe this is where the design is born out of it.

4. EDGES – Meaning “lost and found”. Meaning “hit and miss”. Edges in a painting are paramount because if we follow any brushstroke on previous drawing and we paint on hard edges alone, then the painting becomes too static, emanates a feel of rigidity that is hard to take, is not pleasant to our eyes. It is indispensable that when we paint we constantly have to think in “lost and found”.

It is paramount as we go on hard edges in our painting then sooner or later we have to break that monotony to make it bleed, and that is where we come to “lost and found”, the “yin and yang”. That contradiction in art, the exercise, is the most powerful tool in graphic and visual art; and is the law of antithesis, the law of contradiction, the law of polarity; so it is applicable also in edges: one hard edge, then a soft one.

So basically, that is my very important strategy whenever I am going to tackle a painting. Obviously after so many years of painting, I don’t even think about it.

Listen to Alvaro discuss these points as written.

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• Forget details. Think big!
• Brushstrokes mark the rhythm in a painting.
• Sensitive, expressive brushstrokes make a difference.
• A good brushstroke is one that exploits the characteristics of the paper.

- Alvaro Castagnet