This winter has been long and I’ve been awfully quiet on my website. I’ve been distracted with a lot of plowing, shoveling, snow blowing, sanding, hauling of fire wood, and stoking the wood stove, but despite the challenges and even though I haven’t said much I have made about 90 art works. They came from a combination of exercises, revisiting of old work, picking up themes I’ve worked with in the past, exploring new ideas in a more abstract or non-objective way, or making real looking things from memory or imagination. I tried not to pressure myself into making products, but rather explore ideas and qualities that interest me, and I hope that will bring more graceful progress into my work. I’ll be sharing some of these works in the coming weeks.

In “Where the Water Goes” I played on full 22x30 inch paper to see what could happen. My assignment to myself was to exploit the properties of watercolor without concern for any subject matter. If you are going to use a certain medium you might as well use it to its advantage, flaunt it, and let it show its stuff. Watercolor is wet, drips, splatters, blurs, stains, and is pulled by gravity.  I know these properties can act like a two edged sword that destroy as much as they make. The challenge is like controlling a wild horse while letting it run free.

I used a lot of paint and a lot of water. I tipped the board so water ran down and onto my table. I mopped it up and used the water again. In order to keep things wet I had to work quickly and repeatedly. I tipped the board one way, then after the flow had dried (or not), I tipped the board the other way and did some more. I had to have a lot of paint ready to apply. I worked in broad areas of color which then grew, morphed, and sometimes disappeared in the merging water flow. As it partially dried I splattered and dripped more paint. I also lifted some paint with a wet sponge and bought the surface back to near white. Since this was a non-objective exercise I had no subject in mind, though after it was done I couldn’t help but see things. I also did not feel like I was following an art style but after I was done I felt like there is some affinity with the Jackson Pollack approach.

It isn’t easy to keep a watercolor painting looking fresh, wet, spontaneous, uninhibited, and expressive of feeling and at the same time seem organized or more than just a mess. The approach in these two paintings helped me loosen up and see what watercolor can do.