The art of watercolours AGAIN

A BBC4 programme this week Sheila Hancock brushes up: The art of watercolours - featured Sheila Hancock featured following a historical trail of watercolour painters.

This is about the programme - and some of the artists (Turner, Nash and Lady Canning) who travelled to paint in other countries which featured in it.

courtesy of BBC iplayer

A new programme NOT!

One might think it's a new programme - but it's not!

I know I was marvelling at how she had aged and then thought to check and realised that this is a repeat of a programme first aired in 2011.

What annoys me is that the information that it was first broadcast is way down the bottom of the page! There is nothing upfront to indicate this was a repeat - or a programme from their COLLECTION of curated documentaries from the past.

I don't mind seeing programmes again - or good documentaries that I missed first time. In fact I very often enjoy them more second time around. However I do dislike not realising that this is a programme I've already seen - because there is no indication it was a repeat.

But bloggers always keep track of what happened when!
Some us us even remember watching it the first time around - as I began to realise I had.  See

• Sheila Hancock brushes up: The art of watercolours (20th February 2011). 
• my 2010 blog post about New BBC Art Programmes this autumn which highlighted the programme

COMING SOON: The Art Of Travel – A History Of Watercolours With Sheila Hancock
It's so nice to see British watercolours at last getting an airing on television.  Looks like we're in for a bit of a "Grand Tour" 

She will travel through the Lake District and other parts of the UK, and through France and Italy to revel in the beauty of Venice and the Tuscany. Sheila will also concentrate on the paintings of famous artists such as Turner and Constable, whose watercolour works are often overlooked.

This programme will be a celebration of an art form at which amateurs excelled but in which leading artists, who boasted of their prowess in oils, often made their most personal and intimate works – thousands of which, to this day, remain hidden in gallery drawers for Sheila Hancock to unearth. 

A celebration of the rich yet largely untold story of British watercolour. Focusing especially on the work of amateur travelling painters of the 19th Century, Sheila Hancock will look closely at the technique of watercolour painting and the unique strengths of a portable medium as a means of record in the days before photography.

Bottom line - Sheila Hancock is now 85 years old - but would have been c.76ish when the film was made.

Anyway this is what the BBC had to say about it - this year!

Watercolours have always been the poor relation of oil painting. And yet the immediacy and freedom of painting in watercolours have made them the art of adventure and action - even war. It has been an art form the British have pioneered, at first celebrating the greatest landscapes of Europe and then recording the exotic beauty of the British Empire.
Sheila Hancock - an ardent fan of watercolours since her childhood, and whose father was an amateur watercolourist - sets out on a journey - from the glories of the Alps and the city of Venice to deepest India - as she traces the extraordinary story of professional and amateur watercolourists, and reveals some of the most beautiful and yet little-known pictures.

You can see all clips from Sheila Hancock Brushes Up: The Art of Watercolours (3)

I once went on a painting holiday in France - and followed the week when Sheila Hancock and John Thaw were there!

People mentioned in the programme

In terms of the people and items mentioned in the programme

Joseph Mallord William Turner
Venice: The Punta della Dogana, with the Zitelle in the Distance - Early Morning
1819 - Como and Venice Sketchbook
Image released under Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND (3.0 Unported)

• JMW Turner's watercolours and sketchbooks: These are links to:
• The Tate project about J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings, Watercolours
• Turner's Sketchbooks 1790s | The Art of the Landscape - a blog post I wrote back in 2010 about the individual sketchbooks which, at the time. you could access easily via the Tate website. Sadly while still accessible the access route is rather more tortuous
• Turner's Travelling Paintbox

Hill Fort of Kot Kangra, Kangra Valley, Himachal Pradesh by Charlotte Canning

• Lady Charlotte Canning, Countess Canning (India) 1817-1861: She was a talented watercolour artist who became lady-in-waiting to Queen Victoria in 1842
• Lady Canning: an Indian Summer is an article about Lady Canning - the watercolourist who painted India to relieve the tedium of being married to the Governor-General of India. 
• Victoria and Albert Museum - artworks by Charlotte Canning (contained in albums most of which have not been digitised)
• Royal Collection Trust - Charlotte Canning Watercolours
• Google Images: Lady Canning Watercolours
• Paul Nash (1889-1946):
• Google Images: Paul Nash Watercolours
• Art UK - Paul Nash - includes watercolours
• Piano Nobile (Gallery): Paul Nash: Watercolours, 1910-1946 ANOTHER LIFE, ANOTHER WORLD Holland Park 9 October 22 November 2014 - an excellent overview of his watercolours.