One of the things that most appeals to me about watercolor on paper is the interplay of the water that carries the pigment with the surface on which the work takes place. And it does take place -- as a body moving, dwelling for a time on a surface, a sort of dance. The "finished" work is a trace that remains after the work of water and the artist's hand is done. The work is not so much the application of pigment to paper as the release of water bearing pigment to move on a surface, coaxing it to bend light in ways that invite participant observers (including the one doing the painting) to see things that are not there.
For this piece, I thoroughly dampened the top sheet of an Arches block of 140 lb cold pressed paper and released red and blue pigments to flow together to form a purple field adjacent to a yellow field that flowed together to offer a hint of green. The seven sisters of the title emerge from a series of yellow strokes applied in several layers as the paper dried. It seems to me (to paraphrase Goethe) that if there were not something of the flower in the eye, the flower could not be seen by it. Do you see what I'm saying?
- Subject Matter: flowers
- Created: April 2021
- Collections: abstracts, flowers, still lifes, watercolor