I Am a Watercolourist

I am a watercolourist, and have known this for years, and for years I have been trying to mimic my watercolour techniques first in acrylic for a very short while and then for years in water-soluble oil paints. Returning to watercolour for three of the four rolls that will be in the group show I am in at Arcadia Gallery in Toronto this June, I find an old joy. I bought a not-too-expensive roll of Canson Monteval watercolour paper, 140lb, and cut 4 strips of paper, 6' long and 2' wide. The drawings or paintings on each strip should be 5' long, but I have not been strict about it. I dug out Windsor & Newton watercolour paints that are 30 years old, and still going strong, and bought a few new tubes of Daniel Smith, and gave in to an old joy. This week of painting has been nerve-wracking, getting the anatomy right in my own style somewhat gruelling and requiring intense concentration (gone are the even bland colours of Conceptualism), and ultimately very satisfying. I am still exploring my preConceptual Art stage, having returned to my style as a teenager and allowed what has been developing under the consciousness, at the depths, to inform the painterly choices of form, colour, brushstroke, etc., in paintings now.

Photo of 'Paint Pans' for the three figures in dance (still untitled), Roll 4, that I've been posting the progress of this week. My cat drinks paint water, hence the torn metal lid of the canning jar (too narrow for her) and the covered water glasses. I also keep a few jars of pennies nearby and give them a good shake if she tries to step on the painting - she races off at the sound and I keep them like spells around paintings and the threat of their sound has kept her off wet paintings for the 5 years I've had her I am happy to say. I keep the sable brushes overnight wetted in saran wrap (some of those brushes are 40+ years old). The Sushi dip plastic containers come in handy, huh. I use cheap cafeteria trays to keep my palette, paints, brushes, water and towels on - they are easy to move to another table for working, or another room if there is better light. In this photo, you can see the entire palette for painting the figures in over a background that had been previously prepared with all the same colours, except for the sienna and umber, that I have been posting this week.
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Roll 4, anacrusis #6

They are dancers, but still no title. iPhone photo taken at night, so colour corrected and upped the exposure, right side catching a bit of light-glare, so the 'burn tool' applied to the right (@ 13%), probably giving it more contrast than the real piece... which is about 5'5" long (as tall as me) and 2' wide. Been working on this for a week, ok, really, in concept since last Fall, think it's just about 'there.'

The figures are composed from a film, Test. I saw Test on TV last November (2015) and fell in love with the dance sequences. So I ordered the film from Amazon and studied it, watching the dance sequences over and over and over. I cannot afford a model, let alone models. In a film, I can study the figures in motion and get a sense of volume in space as they twist and turn and as the camera views them from different angles. I know these figures from all sides and could paint them front or back. There was not a moment in the film where three dancers looked like this. The painting is my own composition as are decisions about lighting. Of course, I took some liberty with the facial features, changing this and that, and the anatomy, the anatomy which is such a challenge and so rewarding after the years of Conceptual blandness, is in my own style.
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Roll 4, anacrusis#5

This painting is now close to completion. The guy on the right took most of the afternoon and evening. Painting with watercolour is nerve-wracking. Much easier if it was acrylic or oils – one could just wipe off any changes. This is not possible with watercolor.

You can lift watercolour paint from the paper by wetting and blotting it - not fully, but usually enough. But when you add wet paint on top of dried watercolour all the colours re-activate. I'm using a nearly drybrush technique with the whitener - and hoping to keep the colour underneath. Any mistakes and I have to wet and blot and it goes through all the layers and I get a 'hole' that is very hard to fill to look like the original layers again.

Anyway, that said, the guy on the right is currently dominating the painting. I need to do the shadows on his face and hair, and the highlights, and then see. The guy on the left has trousers on, and his hips are in deep shadow. But if I do that, all of the figures will lift off the background and not be integrated into the swirl of blue.

My daughter, who's only seen the image here, thinks maybe to leave the guy on the right 'faceless' and so I am considering that too. Then the painting is about the central figure, and the other two are half-formed, sinking into a background that they are emerging from.

(iPhone 6s+ photo late at night, colour corrected for the exposure and the blues but the oranges became muted)
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Roll 4, anacrusis #4

Progressing slowly, slowly... took this in the bright light of late afternoon sun and a daylight bulb, so the photo may be a little paler than the painting is.

(By anacrusis I mean the poetry definition: "one or more syllables at the beginning of a line of poetry that are regarded as preliminary to and not a part of the metrical pattern." Which, I think, is from Webster's dict.)
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Roll 4, anacrusis #3

While this painting awaits a title, I am going to number the images of its slow, incremental, and often for me somewhat torturous, development. It is 'Roll 4, anacrusis#3,' and by anacrusis I mean the poetry definition: "one or more syllables at the beginning of a line of poetry that are regarded as preliminary to and not a part of the metrical pattern." Who knows what the final iteration of this painting will be - while it is going in unexpected directions, I am on a discernable painterly path now with it now and will see what is developing through to the end. Another iPhone 6s+ photo, untouched.
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Painting continues to progress

Was going to draw the figures in charcoal overtop the background wash, but it wasn't working. The background is not a light enough wash. So I have begun the long process of painting the figures in. This is the central figure and after I post this I will go and paint the shadows on his other hand. I don't want this painting to be too 'finished' - it has to be quite raw, and by this I mean I hope to keep the elemental quality. A painting in progress -cell photo (untouched). © Brenda Clews 2016. 5'x2', Watercolour on Canson Montval 140lb archival cold press watercolour paper.
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Painting in progress

Falling behind in blogging again, sigh. I'll catch up - I like to store things here as my blog is a kind of archive for me - in the meantime, here is something in progress, first wash. I've been working on paintings for a show at Arcadia in June, and then a single evening called 'Wonder Women' was offered for April 22nd, one night only, and so I will show maybe 3 of the 4 pieces I am readying for the show at the one-night stand. Flyers with dates, time, location and stuff to come.

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