What could they do?
What could I do with them?
No way to know but to press them into service and follow their lead.
I felt mostly flummoxed as I started this piece. The experience felt flat. On the surface. Mechanical, if you will. A hand moving water and color over paper with a brush.
I didn't feel the inward reverberation of expressing myself—although, really, what else could it be that I was doing?—until I picked up my Bic pencil, Neocolor water-soluble crayons, and Posca paint pen.
Then, using my watercolor base on the page as a prompt, I felt animated, intuitive, in flow, present, in direct conversation.
Scribble, scratch, dot, dab, done.
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| Preoccupied with Light and Shadow and the Regular Business of a Summer Morning 4.5x6"; watercolor, pencil, and water-soluble crayon on watercolor paper abstract 2018 |
11 comments:
LOVE this! The shapes,colors, the marks! As a "newbie" to watercolor your best friend is a roll of toilet paper. Works marvels! Use lots of water and blots of paint. Swirl it and let it do its thing!Some of mine I started with a mop brush and tinted water. Blot and add. Make your mark!
I am reminded of a line in the movie Far and Away. "You're a corker Shannon!"
Only I hear, "You're a marker Dotty!". And yes, it is Tom Cruise and his Irish accent. LOL :)
You are a mark maker Dotty. You are gifted that way! What a mix of tools here! Your usual yes? These colors are my happy colors. I see a few little hearts and I am thinking they are happy accidents. Born maybe from you finding your happy painting groove :)
Fun for me that the shapes, colors, and marks of this piece resonate with you, Carol! Thanks for your tips about lots of water and blots of paint. I might just have to break out my watercolors again now at home …
Your input welcome and helpful, Sheila, giving me perspective on my Monhegan watercolor exploration and my accompanying self-chatter.
Any hearts are happy accidents but, yes, born from finding my happy painting groove!
Go for IT!
watercolor is a powerful mistress who demands surrender...we cannot control her except with herculean effort. So, instead, we let her run amok and see that she truly needs no help at all. Love the addition of the neocolors. You are a mark maker!!!
Jen, I like your take on watercolors and surrender and running amok. And I'm welcoming my commenters' observations—yours delightfully among them—that I am a mark maker. Surely I must know this but, truth to tell, I'm not sure I would reflexively think to include that descriptor in a verbal self portrait. So grateful for your feedback!
They indeed make a beautiful combination. Watercolor might be really good for giving an atmosphere, a background of colors, which invites to other movements and gestures.
Well stated, Simone! That is how I chose or 'fell into' using the watercolors while away—as an atmosphere and a background of colors which then led me to other media, movements, and marks.
Beautiful! Wonderful marks, shapes and those colours!
Thanks, Janet! I was very grateful to move from stumbling to more sure-footed as I navigated this one and, once I got back home after some distance from having painted it, it gained some additional ground in its appeal : )
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