Watercolor Unity

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I wanted to follow up on the subject of unity and on the techniques and ways of seeing that I learned from my painting teacher, Kaji Aso. I discussed this in an earlier post.

Anne brought home some beautiful tulips and put one of them in the ceramic dragon vase. I had to paint it.

I followed the watercolor technique that I learned from Mr. Aso. I started with light washes of yellow, yellow being the brightest color, the one that most “comes out”. Yellow is followed by rose then red or light green and lastly blue. This order is not set it stone. It is based on the principle of first using colors that radiate out and then grounding them with colors that sink back. I mixed some colors to get the darkest darks, but mixing was never advocated by Mr. Aso, only layering.

I have to admit that I cleaned up the background of the photo with Photoshop. There was some stray yellow from that first layer.

When is a Painting Finished?

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Picasso supposedly said that a painting is finished when it’s sold. In the movie about Jackson Pollock he was asked, “how do you know when a painting is finished?” Pollock answered with another question, “how do you know when you’re finished making love?” I have been working on, and posting about this painting for about five weeks! I worked and reworked each figure and face while gradually developing the city scape in the background. I gained insight into my working process with the realization that, as much as it would feel more comfortable to have the composition completely worked out ahead of time, that kind of practice would not be satisfying for me. I seem to need to start by just getting the seed idea out there in all it imperfection, and then bringing the pieces together and working out the details, learning about and imagining various elements as I go. I’ve reached the point where I look at the painting and there is nothing more that I am drawn to do. That could change as I continue to look at it over the next weeks and months – or at least until it sells. Here is a 2 minute slide show/video that documents the painting at its various stages.

 

Sunday Drawing, March 20, 2011

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