New Petrolia art show shows vibrancy of watercolour

Mark McLean is about to surprise you with vibrant colours.
The Sarnia artist’s watercolours are this month’s show by the Victoria Hall Art Advisory Committee. McLean loves to surprise people with deep vibrant colour in his work.
McLean say watercolours are often seen as “soft and muted…but watercolour as far as I’m concern can be much more than that,” he says.
“ I enjoy the brilliant colours, the tones and the shades that you can get with water colour
“It sometimes kind of surprises you what you do get,” he says adding, “A lot of people are surprised by the vivid colours that I use in my images as opposed to the more …muted, soft, misty effects of watercolour.”
McLean has doodled all his life. After he retired, he began to explore the use of watercolours. “I started doing water colours only, but I found as I was working doing preliminary work for water colours, I was sort of sketching things out with pencil to see what we’d come up with…it was like planning a road trip,” he says.
And McLean found the graphite pencil was a lot like using watercolours. “I gained skill in drawing it helped me with watercolours.”
McLean has developed a style he calls photo representation. McLean “struggles” with impressionistic art.
“I don’t want it to look like a photo, but I want you to be able to recognize it.”
McLean’s work will be on display for June. An official opening of the show will be Sunday from 12 pm to 2 pm.