Ruth McCabe - UK Watercolour Painter – Artist Spotlight

ruth mccabe watercolor painting

Artist Spotlight - Ruth McCabe – United Kingdom Watercolour Painter

I've been painting since 1997 and for the last 5 years, full time. Progressing from acrylics to oils about 6 years ago, this year I've mainly worked in watercolour, painting the local East Suffolk landscape and working towards greater abstraction.

The grace of the ordinary (working agricultural landscape), natural and man-made tracks and marks on the landscape, colour, flow,all give me pleasure, as do the qualities of different media and surfaces.

Creating goes back to childhood: the colourful world of infant school, the joy of writing, of moving and playing; a mother who sewed and moved furniture around to create new spaces out of old.

watercolor ruth mccabe

What motivates and inspires you the most to make art?

The feeling of open space around me, the sight of colours and shapes. Rounded curving forms, the weight of ewes, pigs and cattle and the landscape of their bodies. A beautiful fat mop brush, gorgeous paints, wonderful hand-made paper, my lovely broad, soft Worther graphite pencil.

Seeing the fantastic colours and forms in other painters' work.

Art Influences

I don't study much, but I do love the Scottish Colourists and Peter Lanyon. Most abstract art really grabs me.

Art Style

Loose, and with watercolour, sparing, less-is-more. Moving the paper around, following where the paint goes and finding the landscape within that.

With oils I work either with deep texture, cutting into the wet paint and when dry rubbing new colour into the rough surface, or brushing wildly and trying not to exert too much control over the marks. (Some way to go there...!!)

watercolor painting art

Themes for My Art

Landscape forms.
The shapes and weightiness of farm animals.
The fluidity of hares.
The character of birds.

How have you promoted your artworks offline?

Galleries stock my work locally.
Joining forces with a few other local artists to set up shows.
Annual Open Studios in Suffolk.

What useful ways have you found to promote your art on the internet?

Don't know how useful since I have not made a sale based on an online outlet.
My website, Facebook art page and membership of art groups, Linked In, other online galleries, a blog.