Gadnell Watercolors

Fascinated by the unexpected—abstract realism in watercolor, where shapes and colors come to life

My main interest has always been drawing and painting. When I was a kid my father bought a Super8 camera and I made animated films, both with puppets and drawings. A cartoon was “Linkan” who went fishing. I remember the lure dangled at the rod tip when Linkan wandered toward the lake in the short film. After several hundreds of drawings I got tired and the film ended abruptly with a big fish eating the happy fisherman.

In Umeå, I studied Art History, attended Art School, and later trained as an Art Teacher since it aligned well with my interests. I then worked as an Art Teacher in Linköping and Uppsala.

After many years teaching it was time for something completely different. 2010, me and my wife Margaretha started a guesthouse in Malta, we called the place “Blå Dörren” (The Blue Door). In Malta, I also taught drawing and watercolor. It was many  nice years, but now we have moved to Algarve doing the winter and I work as a full-time watercolor artist. I also hold workshops in watercolor, mostly in Stockholm, but also in Albufeira, Portugal. 

When I’m in Algarve I paint nature and cityscapes from Algarve. In the summer, when I’m in Sweden I paint mostly Swedish cityscapes. I try to simplify as much as possible in my paintings. My watercolors should be light and airy, so you can see every brush stroke I made. Hope you like my watercolors as much as I like to paint them?

Joseph Zbukvic, Alvaro Castagnet, Marc Folly and Roberto Zangarelli are some of my favourites doing watercolor, I think they are incredibly talented and inspiring.
Browse happily around my site and look at my drawings and watercolors.

You are of course welcome to visit my exhibitions.

https://www.youtube.com/@StefanGadnell

/Stefan Gadnell
Watercolor Artist