Water in the Art Well

Watercolor Bucket

I’m thirsty. I’m wanting cool, clear water–the water of watercolors.

For a whole year now I’ve painted primarily in oils, building form and surprising it with color. Day after day I’ve painted oils, primarily two major works, sometimes up to 7 hours a day, with only exercise breaks. Not giving it up, though the cry for focus almost wins.

I just heard national watercolorist Mary Whyte, faculty at Portrait Society of America that I’ll go to in April for about the 10th time, and Juror for the Watercolor Society of North Carolina’s 2017 Exhibition in Greensboro confess to giving up painting in oils to pour it all into watercolors. That was during that show which she juried my Crab Art-Attack into, and by the way is still in WSNC’s  traveling art show.

Focus has its rationale.

However, if you have five talents, why turn four of them in? Besides, everyone knows water refreshes. What do you do when the well runs dry, the fire runs cold, writer’s block appears? You take that talent or project back to the well  that was filling and pick up your brush to dip into the new water.

During this same year of oil concentration, I’ve been remembering halcyon watercolor days. Getting thirsty for watercolors. Watching two watercolor students I have grow in their expressions in this medium has primed the well. Teaching different strokes, like wet-in-wet and wet-next-to-wet has pumped me. A set of watercolor paper right next to my oil of a beautiful young lady in a red dress is calling me subliminally each time I walk by.

I’ve been photographing what charms the eye, blue glass with light splashing color from it, a face caught in the trees.

Watercolor is a user-friendly medium, particularly suited for glass, light, the tulip tree blossoms now blooming, and the dragonfly I’ve been saving with his delicate network of wings and iridescent bits of film between the assorted shapes. Perhaps spring itself makes me thirsty for watercolor.

I can’t wait.

At the Portrait Society of America meeting, the professional speakers emphasize our need to paint self-portraits. I shouldn’t be surprised, it’s recommended by the author of Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, as well. I’ve been struggling with voice and how mine is different and how to make it appealing. I’m struggling up to a new level, and am about to attempt a new effect a step or two away from my strong realism. I’m not giving that up nor am I turning abstract. The image, however, reminds me of the opening to the Dr. Blake mysteries or the Sherlock movie’s beginnings, and there is a tree over my face. The symbolism is heavy and there is a poetry merge going on, as well.

So I am about to talk my way through the difficulties of the new attempt. I can’t just start, like I sometimes do–I tried that on a watercolor a little over a year ago and that one failed I think due to the watery looks of street lights seducing me into believing all my perspective prelim work was unnecessary. When something looks fluid and easy, it can do that. So I’m going to work this one up a bit first. I have to figure out how to get soft colors without turning them all grey.

It’s a spiritual walk as well as a push into a new realm in craft and expression, and I’m nervous.

I’ll probably have several paintings going at once, and while I’m chilling on this one busy in my other subjects, the answers will probably slide in, full blown.

And while I’m teaching watercolor, something will hit me like Colombo solving a mystery and I’ll have the answer. That still doesn’t keep me from having to work hard, struggle with craft and concept until the baby arrives.

I’m feeling expansive right now, and if I’ve made you thirsty I have an ebook Watercolor Painting Techniques Easy(ier) to introduce watercolor to you. Just send your email address to joartis@aol.com, and I’ll get it to you.

P.S. I finished the drawing–now I need to start splashing! And when I go to the Portrait Society of America in D.C. in April, I’ll hear about watercolor, too, from Mary Whyte.