Remembrance of Things Past

If I want to be honest – which sometimes I don’t want to be! – I never realized that in watercolor, as in sumi-e painting (which I haven’t done for a few years), the brush is important.  In sumi-e, brushwork is important as it expresses what color cannot – color is not found in sumi-e, only shades of blacks and greys and white, with the subject hinted at, not indicated in boldface!  Playing with leaves made me remember this . . .

Because my chronic struggle in watercolor always seems to be overworking and mixing too many colors together, I decided to pick up a book called Everyday Watercolor:  Learn to Paint Watercolor in 30 Days, by Jenna Rainey.  I figured some kind of disciplined plan could work.  Her style of painting is not necessarily my style of painting, but that was not important as far as I am concerned.  My concern was to stop making mud and to relearn what I have forgotten over the years.  The examples in Rainey’s book are pretty basic, pretty straightforward, and actually, a lot of fun to do.  It has helped me drop that little, nagging, nasty perfectionist who always criticizes.  Rather, it is far better to just do, and quit the role of critic.   She does studies such as shapes, allowing colors to bleed into one another; she discusses design in the abstract exercises with squares and circles.  There are simple exercises in drawing and painting trees with foliage in shadow, and depth, with lighter pine trees in the distance, and darker ones in front.

What do I find the most valuable in this book?  Crazily simple lessons.  Step 1.  Step 2.  Step 3.  Limited palettes of color.  Most how-to-watercolor books are wonderfully full of tantalizing pictures, but few that I have seen really drill down to making it simple.  I enjoy the work of watercolorists such as Winslow Homer – people with a loose, free style which I would love to emulate.  I am not a contained person in the sense of wanting to fill in the lines, like in a coloring book, but I also appreciate the disciplined approach of people like Birgit O’Connor, who paints huge flowers, beach debris, and so on.  I am still struggling with watercolors enough to have no style of my own – I am still attempting to master the brushwork, water, and colors.

Currently, I have just finished Day 11, which is wet-into-wet and some dry brush.  Like in dry-into-wet.  Something like that.  It’s a papaya.

I’m looking forward to 19 more days … sort of a diet!  And to date, no mud!