Seeing About Water Colors

Many professional artists see water colors as a medium used only by amateurs. "Real" artists use oil paint, ink, or gouache. Well, I don't care! Over 70% of our planet is water and over 60% of our own bodies is made up of water (and over 70% of our blood is water). The very liquidity and transparent quality of water colors make for unique combinations of color and form. Colors can run down, around, and into each other, creating new colors. I can paint new worlds using them. The colors are very bright like sun light! Natural forms and landscapes are the inspiration for the forms.

                                                                   Reflection
                                                                   2011

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Dual Nature
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2011

Irises Redux

Making a new painting of an image I have already worked does not happen very often. If I do go back "in" it's because I've become inspired once again to spend time with that image, or have found another "angle" on it. I might change the size, shape, or color of the image. Otherwise, to do the same painting over would be boring boring boring.

I recently made a huge painting of two small irises. I was inspired to make the painting again on a much smaller scale. Would the flowers lose their monumentality? Probably. But something different came out, and I'm satisfied with the result.





Irises
Oil: 18" x 24"

Ha Ha! Just kidding. It is often the case that after I think I've finished something, I look at it over a period of time and eventually begin to despise it. Then, there is a choice to be made: rip it apart! Work on it some more? Depending on my state of interest/boredom with the image, I usually wade in. Sometimes the results are a disaster, and sometimes, I am happy to say, the painting improves. Here now is the latest version of Irises:






I really like the new version so much better!




I think I'm getting better at painting. I look at previous paintings that I've made and have the need to enter back in and change them. This particular painting was all yellow and now is blue. I had been looking at the painting for years and although I was basically happy with it, I felt the yellow color was over done and not that interesting. So, years later, I went back "in" and changed it completely. I also, I think, resolved a composition problem in the bottom half of the painting. I like to think that the painting has been moved forward in some way and I can continue to live with it in its new form.



Blue Rose
Oil Painting from "White Rose" 2011

Here's the original: