Watercolors by Chez Watts

Story and artworks from Chez Watts, Watercolor Academy student

Chez Watts is an accomplished English artist working in Bristol. He is an honourable member of the Watercolor Academy. He is an honourable member of the Watercolor Academy. Here, we are pleased to present his watercolor portraits.

When I was six years old I made a model of an African Savannah watering hole in a large tray, it had a mirror for the water, horse chestnut twigs with sticky buds held by plasticene for the trees and turf for the ground and several three dimensional animals made from shaped, crayoned and glued cardboard. At the time my father was in the RAF stationed at 'No 12 Instrument School, Melksham' an RAF 'college' with about 12,000 apprentices and tutors that had an annual 'Arts and Crafts Festival'. My mother entered some of her dressmaking into the appropriate class and, unbeknown to me, my model into the children's (under 14 years old) Art category. I never went to the show, but my entry won 2 shields which I still have. First prize in the children's Art entries and 'Most Original Exhibit' prize across all entries, which were more than a thousand. Consequently My mother encouraged me to pursue the Arts, but my father a radio engineer, thought technology was a safer bet. Fast forward to my first year in Grammar school at eleven years old. We had reports every term and by the end of my first year I had scored 100% for Art on each of 3 reports both for the term work and the exam work,recorded seperately. The headmaster put a comment on my end of year report which pointed out that if it hadn't been for my Art marks, instead of being 5th overall in the class of 36 I would have been 22nd overall. From then on he never added in the Art marks to the overall form position calculation on school reports. He obviously thought that Art was irrelevant. During that year the Art teacher encouraged her class to enter into published children's Art competitions. On three occasions she entered my work into a competition without telling me (she also covered the entry fee in two of them) and each time I won, including a £50 note for a brewery prize for the best inn sign. I'd painted a fully square rigged sailing ship, a quarter frontal view and wrote 'Marie Celeste' below it, inspired by a note about it in my 'Schoolboy Diary'. The local town had a town fete on the sports field on a Saturday afternoon. While I was there I heard my name announced over the tannoy to go and collect my prize. It turned out the Art mistress had put one of my paintings in an Art competition, as it happened, it must have been a competition for adults, because the prize was a bottle of whiskey! I never found out which picture it was, but I didn't make inquiries for fear of getting the whiskey taken off me. We had an elderly aristocratic lady 'Lady Pinney' as one of the school governors. Each year she set a painting subject for a prize she presented on Prize Giving day. The competition was open to all the schools 180 pupils and this year the subject was 'An English Country Garden'. The Art teacher tried to get everyone in the school doing Art to make a submission to the Lady Pinney prize. It was unusual for a first year pupil to win it but I did. When Lady Pinney gave me the prize on stage (a W&N artist's watercolour laquered steel box filled with 18 half pans, with 6 W&N series 7 brushes of several sizes and 3 different size and surface pads of Artists heavyweight watercolour paper) she asked me to meet her as soon as the prizegiving was over. She afterwards talked to me for about 15 minutes about taking up watercolour painting with quality materials. She thought it was a medium at which the English could excel and she hoped I would take it up seriously. Unfortunately, Lady Pinney died the following year so I never met her again. The Art teacher who always put me at the top of the class got pregnant and didn't return for the following year. A replacement could not be found and the school was without an Art teacher for the next three years, though other teachers occasionally substituted without much enthusiasm. The headmaster was also the careers master so when he interviewed me in the 5th form to ask me what career I wanted to pursue, I told him I wanted to go to Art School. He then told me a complete lie (though he may have believed it himself) that all Art Schools were private schools not supported by the government and very expensive to attend. My parents would probably not be able to afford to send me to an Art School, but if I went to University I would be able get a means tested grant which might well cover the entire cost. So that I was persuaded to study Maths, Physics and Chemistry in the 6th form, though I never gave up the desire to go to Art School - though that's another story.

Aude with red knickers Back Yard Lurcher Pups Beatrice in Purple Bobby Goodman Charlotte Moss with Guiness Christmas Red Dress Colour excercise Cotswold Hare Morning Cousins Cramps Debbie Raszmann in wedding dress Emily Greenleaf crosslegged Julie Henderson Julie in shorts Liza Love Maria Myshall stands in for model Nantyrychan Farmhouse Sabine Likhite in a Starry pants

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