Category: watercolor

Posted on

Monday Morning Art School: basic protocol for painting in watercolor

An efficient plan for fast plein air painting in watercolors.

Surf at Marshall Point, by Carol L. Douglas

Last week I gave you a basic primer for oil painting in the field. This week, I’ve done the same for watercolor.

1. Set up your paint box/palette with pigments arranged in a rainbow pattern.
You don’t need as many colors as you think you do. But be sure to replace a color when you run out, not when you think you’ll next need it.
2. Do a value drawing of the scene in question, in your sketchbook.
Identifying a value structure at the beginning is the single most important thing a watercolor artist can do to make a strong painting.

Blueberry Barrens, by Carol L. Douglas
3. Crop your drawing, and identify and strengthen big shapes and movements.
If you start by filling in a little box, you only allow yourself one way to look at the composition. Instead, draw what interests you first, and then contemplate how it might best be boxed into a painting.
A watercolor value study. I sometimes do this in oils as well, when I’m a little concerned about my composition.
4. Do a monochrome value study, using a combination of burnt sienna and ultramarine to make a dark neutral.
This is where you solidify your choices of lights and darks. It’s a ‘practice swing’ for the final painting. I took a watercolor workshop from the incomparable Poppy Balser a few years ago and was chuffed to see that she teaches the same thing.
5. Transfer contour drawing to watercolor paper.
The more thinking you’ve done about placement and composition before you start, the less likely you are to obliterate your light passages.
Glade, by Carol L. Douglas
6. Apply Initial Washes
Using a large brush, start with the sky and work down. Allow lighter washes to bleed across spaces for darker objects and let the sky bleed into the sea, if applicable.
7. Add darks and definition
Work down from medium to smaller brushes, remembering to leave some white space showing.
8. Paint the Cast Shadows
The cast shadows should be transparent and colorful, not gray. 
Posted on

Old Fruits

Long before ecofeminism was an idea, these women produced clear-eyed, scientific observations of nature.
Cerise de Montmorency cherry (Prunus avium), with specimen originating in Linden, Maryland; 1910, watercolor by Deborah Griscom Passmore, courtesy USDA
I would never know about the US Department of Agriculture’s Pomological Watercolor Collection if it weren’t for an artist and activist named Parker Higgins. Starting around 2015, he began investigating why the USDA kept their digitized collection behind a paywall. He found that the USDA had miscalculated when entering the rough-and-tumble market of digital data, spending $300,000 to earn just $600 in fees. He then pushed public officials to release the pictures to the public for free.
The watercolors would have remained unknown, except that Higgins then taught himself to program enough to build a twitter bot. Follow @pomological, and you can see a new Old Fruit Picture every three hours.
Diseased Lisbon lemon (Citrus limon); 1910, watercolor by Elsie Lower Pomeroy, courtesy USDA
The USDA’s Pomological Collection was cutting edge long before Higgins took it up. At a time when women were barely represented in the workforce, they were the driving force behind this work.
Women were just beginning to attend art school in the latter half of the 19th century. For most of them, a career like Mary Cassatt’s was out of the question. Working as a government illustrator was an acceptable career choice. About a third of the USDA’s pomological artists were women, and just three of them were responsible for more than half the collection: Deborah Griscom Passmore, Amanda Almira Newton, and Mary Daisy Arnold.
Japanese persimmon (variety Hachiya); 1915, watercolor by Amanda Newton, courtesy USDA
The paintings were mostly produced in the thirty-year span from 1886 to 1916. They were intended for use as illustrations in USDA publications directed toward farmers. This was a time of high immigration and rapid growth westward; ten states joined the Union in that thirty-year period. Rapidly-expanding agriculture went along with rapidly-expanding population. The hunt was on for fruits that could endure shipping, and farmers worked with the USDA to test and then grow these cultivars. The artists were sent samples of these fruits from farmers across the nation. They then made scientifically-accurate illustrations for USDA publications and records. The majority of these cultivars no longer exist.
Deborah Griscom Passmore was the daughter of a Quaker farmer from Delaware County, PA. She studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and then went on to Europe. Passmore was hired by the USDA in 1892, and her talents were quickly recognized. Within a year she was head of the department, which at the time had fifty artists attached to it. One of her first tasks was to paint exhibits for the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. She worked for the USDA for 19 years, and was responsible for a fifth of its 7500 paintings.
Dunlap variety of strawberries (Fragaria species), with specimen originating in Geneva, New York; 1912, watercolor by Mary Daisy Arnold, courtesy USDA
Less is known about the life of Amanda A. Newton. She was the granddaughter of Isaac Newton, the first commissioner of the USDA, who died when she was a child. She introduced the innovation of wax models of fruit to the survey, making about 300 specimens herself. Mary Daisy Arnold’s origins are similarly obscure, but she was known to have attended art school in New York. When she wasn’t painting fruit for the USDA, she painted landscapes in oils.
Elsie Lower Pomeroy was the one female USDA illustrator who went on to an independent painting practice. Born in New Castle, PA, she was raised in Washington and attended the Corcoran School of Art. She worked in the Washington USDA office, married a staff pomologist and moved with him to Riverside, CA. There, she became involved in the California Realism movement.
And one apple, since they comprise the majority of the collection: Rimmer Apple, with specimen originating in Cedar Grove, Orange County, North Carolina; 1901, watercolor by Deborah Griscom Passmore, courtesy USDA
19th century women watercolorists have an unjust reputation for anemic, ‘maidenly’ work, but there is nothing hesitant about these watercolors. They are careful technical renderings with big, juicy color. From a time long before ecofeminism was an idea, they are clear-eyed observations of nature.
Posted on

Schooner or Schoodic?

If you register before Christmas, you’ll get a $50 discount for the schooner workshop or $100 off the price of the Schoodic workshop.
A coastal Maine sunset, courtesy of Claudia Schellenberg.
My daughter Mary once said that what I really wanted for my birthday was for someone to come here and throw things out. It’s a bit of an exaggeration, but I’m not a collector.
The one thing I can always be suckered into is cooking gadgets. This is odd, because I’m a bad cook.
                                                                                                                                                      
We fall into the gadget trap when we’re frustrated by our incompetence. A kitchen of beautiful equipment hasn’t made me a cook, and a studio full of lovely brushes won’t make someone a painter, either. A workshop is much better value for money, and it doesn’t take up space.
A schooner gam by dawn in Penobscot Bay. You don’t see that everywhere.

The Age of Sail

June 9-13, 2019 

This was so much fun, we’re reprising it for as long as Captain John Foss puts up with us. We sail with him on the historic schooner American Eagle out of Rockland harbor. This is a leisurely cruise along the Maine coast, sailing where the wind blows and recording our impressions in watercolor journals.
Who knows what you’ll see? I’ve done this trip four times and each one was completely different. The light, the wildlife, and the water are all constantly changing. And I’m going to teach you to catch that in your sketchbooks.
Your materials are all provided, including paints, papers, and the use of brushes. All you do is show up. Non-painting guests are welcome too. The Captain will put them to work, if they want.
Extremely al fresco lobster boil.
The trip lasts four days and includes an evening “gam,” a raft-up of the great schooner fleet of the mid-coast region. That’s an opportunity to see these beasties up close and personal.
American Eagle is a true relic of the great days of sail power, but it’s been updated so you have a comfortable berth, fresh linens, modern heads and a fresh-water shower.
Our meals are cooked up on the original woodstove by the cook and his mate. They’re fantastic. They include a lobster bake, which might be at sea or on an empty island, depending on where we end up.
There’s no place to paint like the coast of Maine. Photo courtesy of Ellen Joyce Trayer
August 4-9, 2019

This is my sixth year teaching from Schoodic Institute. It’s situated right at Schoodic Point, in one of the finest locations in all of Acadia National Park—quiet, unspoiled and dramatic. The Institute was built on the site of an old naval base, so it commands the point. It’s laced with hiking paths. Its use is restricted to educational programs, so there’s none of the hustle and bustle you find elsewhere in the park. And the whole area is wild and undeveloped.
Meals, snacks, and accommodations are included in your fee. This includes a lobster boil by a local fisherman. We do morning and afternoon sessions, I demo during lunch, and then we return to the Institute for quiet camaraderie at night. There’s a critique at the end.
All media welcome. Photo courtesy of Claudia Schellenberg.

If your partner wants to come along, he or she will find ample opportunity to hike, bike, fish, or tour in the immediate area. It’s an outdoorsman’s paradise.

Email me here for more information. If you register before Christmas, you’ll get a $50 discount for the schooner workshop or $100 off the price of the Schoodic one.
Posted on

Monday Morning Art School: what do different brushes do? (Part 2, watercolor)

Brushes are much more important in watercolor than in oil painting. Here’s what each brush is for.
The more vertical the brush, the more flow.
Recently a student asked me why he was carrying so many different brushes. What were their uses? This is the second part of the answer; I addressed oil painting brushes last week.

Watercolor brushes are softer than oil-painting brushes. The most expensive are sable brushes, and unlike oil-painting brushes, the difference is worth paying for. Natural bristles combine strength with suppleness and hold more paint than synthetics. However, there are some fine synthetic brushes out there. Several of my go-to brushes are Princeton Neptunes. 

Unlike oil-painting brushes, your watercolor brushes should last a lifetime, so buy the best you can afford. The only absolute rule is to never leave them standing in water. Set them down flat between brushstrokes and rinse them thoroughly when you’re done.
Made with the synthetic spalter brush, above.

Except for squirrel mops, watercolor brushes drop more pigment the more vertically they’re held. You can use this to move from a filled area to a broken one in one brush stroke. In all the following examples except for the mop, I’ve held the brush both ways. A good general rule is to carry the vertical brush slowly and in a controlled manner; pull a horizontal brush more rapidly to get the least amount of paint contact with the paper.

The brush I used for the photo montage above is a 2″ flat synthetic mottler or spalter brush. I like this shape for both oils and watercolor. It’s a relatively inexpensive brush that gives a beautiful wash. It’s useful for covering large areas quickly, but with precise edges.

A flat gives you a good even wash. Used on its side, it can give you a controlled line.
And that would be the bright. More punch, less pigment.
Flats and brights give you nice flat washes, but can be used to make expressive lines as well. Brights have more control and carry less paint, just as they do in oil painting. Turn them on their sides to make a controlled line. Twisting the brush while painting gives an infinite variety of shapes. So too does varying the ratio of paint and water.
You can’t do either of these things in any other medium.

Because of the way watercolor bleeds, its brushes can be used in ways not possible in any other medium–a long blend of different pigments, or by painting a shape in clear water and then dropping pigment into it.

Round brushes are just more lyrical than flats.
I don’t normally carry riggers with me in either watercolor or oils. (They’re meant to paint perfect lines, and my world-view apparently doesn’t have many perfect lines in it.) Most of my line work is done with rounds. They do not give as much control on long lines, but they are very expressive.
A mop brush makes a perfect wash, but it does so much more as well.

Squirrel mops are the most uniform wash brush you can use. It’s virtually impossible to make them skip, so use them where a lovely flat wash is a goal.

Mop brush on very textured paper.
But a good mop can also point, hold vast amounts of paint and sweep across the paper in style.
One of my favorite tools, a natural sponge.

Natural sea sponges are multi-purpose painting brushes. Use them to apply or remove paint. They can be as subtle or bold as you wish.

Paint lifted (left) and applied (right) with a sponge.

Your brushwork contributes immeasurably to the quality of your painting. Don’t dab or be diffident; plan your strategy and then execute it with boldness. To do this, of course, you have to practice.


Posted on

When bad things happen

It’s not what you say or what you do, but how you make people feel that matters the most.
Damariscotta Overlook, by Carol L. Douglas.

Yesterday started auspiciously enough, with clearing skies and a warm sun. I was potting around in my studio when I noticed something awful. The rain on Saturday night had pounded torrentially on the roof above our heads. It also washed its way down an interior beam of my studio and across four of my watercolor landscapes. They were fixed with Krylon acrylic, and the result was a series of sticky driplines.

I reeled. The damaged work represented a quarter of my oeuvre for this residency. “I bet you feel like crying,” Clif Travers said, sympathetically. If he’d looked closer, he’d have seen tears pricking at the corners of my eyes.
Well, there was nobody to blame and nothing I could think of to do about it. My studio space at the Fiore Art Center has a spanking new roof, door and siding. Water must have migrated along a beam from elsewhere and down the wall. This was freak damage, which can happen anywhere, at any time. Furthermore, our work—as precious as it is to us personally—is still just stuff. It was a rotten experience, but by no means did it rise to the level of disaster.
Damariscotta Lake, by Carol L. Douglas. I’ve finished this residency with eight pairs of landscapes, one in oils, one in watercolor.
“It’s no use crying over spilt milk,” I told myself sternly, and set off to paint.
Paint is a perverse mistress. I’ve struggled for a month in oils (which are my primary medium) while watercolor has flowed much more smoothly from my brush. Here on this last day, in the grip of distress, the paint flowed freely from my brush. In fact, it went so smoothly that when Anna Abaldo of Maine Farmland Trust contacted me about the damaged paintings, I declined to talk. Why drag myself back to earth when my work was going so well?
Clouds over Teslin Lake, by Carol L. Douglas. This was painted in 2016, and is quite small.
When we eventually met up, she—with very few words but immense compassion—made me feel infinitely better. She has a plan to deal with the damage, which is in itself reassuring. More importantly, the experience cemented my already-high confidence in her character. “At the end of the day it’s not what you say or what you do, but how you make people feel that matters the most,” said Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.
Point Prim, watercolor, by Carol L. Douglas. This was painted in 2017, with a pretty bad head, I’m afraid. That’s all Poppy Balser’s and Bobbi Heath’s fault.
Later that evening, Lois Dodd—who’s a personal idol and Maine’s greatest living oil painter—came for supper. I’m totally star-struck around her, and can’t think of a thing to say. However, she’s a lovely, warm, articulate lady. She critiqued one of my paintings. That’s an experience I’ll treasure.
David Deweyslipped me a small notebook before our meal. It contains a series of charts that were the basis of Joseph Fiore’s color exercises. They’re little mathematical puzzles, and they fascinate me. Today I’ll stop at a drugstore and buy some graph paper, and tomorrow—my painting finished for this residency—I’ll sit quietly and try to puzzle them out. I couldn’t ask for a better end to a lovely month.
Posted on

Autumn color is hitching up its skirts and getting ready to sprint

Interested in fall foliage? This is the ultimate road trip for a leaf-looker.
Glade #1, by Carol L. Douglas. Watercolor on Yupo.

We haven’t had a frost yet, but with each day I see a bit more color. To date, it’s mostly the sumacs and undergrowth, but the top of the birches are starting to glint gold.

Someone sent me this cool interactive fall foliage map. It’s probably a good, broad sketch, but I’m skeptical about the details. I know, for example, that Penobscot Bay is unlikely to change in tandem with Fort Kent, ME. Nor will Rochester turn side-by-side with the high peaks of the Adirondacks.
Maine’s official color-spotters agree with me. “Northern Maine is at or near peak conditions the last week of September into the first week of October. Central, and western mountains of Maine are at or near peak Columbus Day week/weekend. Coastal and southern Maine generally reach peak or near peak conditions mid-to-last October.”
Glade #2, by Carol L. Douglas. Oil on canvas.
If it were up to me, I’d be heading north to Canada’s Algonquin Provincial Park today, with my canoe. It’s not a western park, but it would give me aspen, tamarack and maples, set against black spruce.
Then I’d spend a few days in Ottawa, Montreal and Quebec City for a dose of Canadian city life. I’d continue to Halifax and spend a few days knocking about Nova Scotia’s eastern shore, reveling in ancient maritime Canada. Eventually, I’d head to Digby and the ferry to St. John, NB. I’d then roll south, making sure to stop at West Quoddy Head Light and the boreal trail at Quoddy Head State Park.
Marshes along the Ottawa River, Plaisance, Quebec, by Carol L. Douglas
Stop right there, Carol. “You just skipped mysterious, moody Eastport,” I admonish myself. Well, I also skipped Lunenburgand Peggy’s Cove in Nova Scotia, and the fossil cliffs of New Brunswick. Not to mention the superlative Group of Sevencollection at the National Gallery in Ottawa. It’s impossible to list the interesting stuff you’d see on this trip, but if you can’t blow four weeks driving from Algonquin to Boston, you’re not really trying.
It’s under 3000 km. The trip of a lifetime, I tell you.
Speaking of the Group of Seven, I’m finishing up my residency at the the Joseph Fiore Art Center with a classically Go7 exercise which I periodically attempt and at which I never excel. That’s painting a glade. I don’t want a dominant tree, or to use white birches as a foil for dark foliage. I’m looking for a deeper kind of compositional integrity, and, so far, I haven’t found it.
This tiny glade first attracted me because of the glitter of the lone yellow tree against all that green. It would have been difficult enough to paint it in sunlight. In the dripping gloom and mist and rain we’ve had this week, it’s been maddening. I don’t think either painting was a success, but they’re both interesting, and that’s all I really want for today.
We’re winding down now. Clif Travers and I agree that today is the last day it’s possible to paint in oils and have work that’s dry enough to move. I may paint in watercolor Saturday, or I may coo at my brushes and clean up my kit for my next big event.
Posted on

Equipment troubles

It’s time to make some hard choices about my two wooden easels.
The last cutting, v. 2, by Carol L. Douglas. Watercolor, same subject as yesterday, but turned the other way. This is one of those times where a square canvas would be appropriate.

 On Wednesday, I realized I’d lost my watercolor palette on Clary Hill. The palette—$14.79 at Jerry’s—is no big deal. It was, however, fully loaded with paint. That’s an expensive nick in the wallet.

I use an old Mabef tripod swing easel for watercolor. I’ve had it forever. It has been replaced by a larger version in most catalogues, but this old friend has been a reliable, versatile workmate for several decades. A few years ago, the head cracked on one side. I compressed and glued it so it worked again. The thumbscrew no longer tightens enough to hold the arm perfectly stable, so I prop it up with my knee when painting. For big boards, I’ve been taping the support to the easel’s head rather than trying to hold it mechanically. I seem to end up using this easel in preference to newer, snazzier ones.
On Tuesday in the dripping rain, that original crack opened back up again. I duct-taped it tightly and hoped for the best. Yesterday, the other side of the head cracked. Again, I taped it together. However, with no tension in the head, the arm is free to bounce around willy-nilly on its pivot. I’m afraid my old friend may be headed for the woodstove.
With both sides of the head cracked, there is nothing to keep tension on the pivot head, and the arm can swing willy-nilly.
There are many reasons to love wooden easels—they’re relatively cheap, they’re stable in high winds, and, properly cared for, they can last for years. However, they have two shortcomings. The first is that wood is heavy. Few modern-day plein air painters have donkeys or servants to carry our equipment up steep hillsides. When I was forty, this wasn’t a big issue. As I approach sixty, it has become a limiting factor. An aluminum pochade box and a lightweight tripod weigh a fraction of what a decent wood easel does.
Wood is hygroscopic. That means the moisture content changes depending on the relative humidity. That’s the killer for all unfinished wood used outdoors, and easels are no exception. My Gloucester easel—also old, purchased used many years ago—requires a rock to hammer the pins into place, because they’ve swollen over time.
Painting earlier this year with a Gloucester easel. It’s the only easel tough enough for on-shore winds. Photo courtesy of Karen Lybrand.
That’s an easel with an interesting history. It is a traditional European design that was brought to Gloucester, MA, at the turn of the last century by painter Oscar Anderson. He made and sold them to fellow artists; old ones bear his name-plate.  The Anderson easel became known generically as a “Gloucester easel.” Today there are two versions available—a beautifully milled, expensive one called the Take-It Easel, and a mass-produced one called the Beauport Easel. They work exactly the same, although I imagine the better-made one will last longer.
It’s a very stable design, and it has the great advantage of allowing work to tilt forward toward a sitting painter. Still, I don’t like to carry it any farther than I can trundle it in a wagon. Not only is it big and cumbersome, it is held in the folded position by only a canvas strap. (Mine rotted away years ago.) And it’s useless for watercolor, because the head doesn’t pivot.
Meanwhile, the unsettled Atlantic is giving us some very interesting sunrises. This was yesterday’s; this morning we were socked in with fog.
I have a spare pivot-head easel in my studio in Rockport, and I’ll collect it on Saturday. It’s a Guerilla painter head that I adapted to hold a larger board. With its tripod, it weighs a ton, but that won’t matter for this residency. After that, I’ll take apart both my wooden easels and make some hard choices. Can they be rehabbed, or must they be replaced?
Posted on

Rachel’s garden

One of the great virtues of old age is knowing that small problems are transient. So is bad painting.
Rachel’s Garden, by Carol L. Douglas. Watercolor on Yupo, full sheet.
Plein air events require that you churn out paintings despite the weather. The caterers, the hall, the advertising and the auctioneer cannot be easily rescheduled. The wet, whipping show must go on. I’m not doing an event, but my goal for this residency is to paint outdoors despite the weather.
September can be the worst month for this, because it’s hurricane season along the Atlantic coast. We aren’t in as much danger here in Maine, but we often get the sloppy dregs of other people’s storms.
Neither Monday nor Tuesday were good painting days. On Monday, there were cutting winds, compensated in part by a dull pink sky that hung around all morning. Tuesday, it simply poured.
Yesterday (9/11) was a national day of mourning that I was determined to avoid. It’s also the anniversary of my mother’s death four years ago. Here at Rolling Acres Farm, I’m surrounded by young people and creative ferment. I was grateful for that.
Painting with Rachel Alexandrou in the rain. Photo courtesy Rachel Alexandrou and Maine Farmland Trust.
The barn here is built on the standard New England plan: hayloft above and animals below. My parents owned such a barn for fifty years, so I am as familiar with this model as I am with the lines in my own face. Perhaps there was a painting of gentle remembrance in the undercroft’s murky light. No luck; it is filled with the timbers from the original loft.
Rachel Alexandrou is the resident gardener here. Her garden is very different from the ordered rows of my youth. It’s beautiful and productive, but also very unstructured. It would have been easier to paint a slice of it up close, but that wasn’t possible in a pouring rain. Besides, I was in no mood to “keep it simple,” as a sensible painter would.
My childhood home, from History of Niagara County, N.Y.,1878, by Sanford & Company.
The garden is bracketed by a dead sapling and a Black Walnut. This tree is common in America’s heartland; a massive one was already middle-aged in my parents’ lawn when their house was drawn in 1878. It was still there when the house was sold three years ago. While Black Walnuts are valuable timber trees, they’re also allelopathic; meaning they kill any young plants trying to get a footing near them. The one at Rolling Acres Farm is the first I’ve seen in Maine, but I didn’t want to paint it. I find them threatening.
That same black walnut in 2010.
I set up under a porte-cochĂšrethat connects the house and barn. Rachel has been experimenting with making Black Walnut ink, so she joined me.
The mist and rain came close to defeating us. I was further hampered by not being able to find my palette. The Maine Farmland Trust is dedicated to environmental stewardship, so there are no plastic plates. I used a paper one for a palette, not too successfully.
Rolling Acres Farm (unfinished) by Carol L. Douglas, was painted Monday.
I quit as dusk neared. It was then that I noticed I had a very soft tire. My car just isn’t up to the rocky tracks I’ve been subjecting it to. A slow drive into Damariscotta and an air compressor, and I could head back to Clary Hill to see if I’d dropped my palette there. I scouted along the lane to no avail. Walking back, I realized I have a marker light out in my car.
My temporary palette. Ouch.
One of the great virtues of old age is knowing that small problems are transient. So is bad painting. Today or tomorrow, it will all be fine again.
Posted on

Dancing in the rain

If I knew what would happen, I wouldn’t bother trying.
The float, by Carol L. Douglas. Same subject as yesterday.
Today is my 38th wedding anniversary; Wednesday was my granddaughter’s third birthday. I knew I’d miss these milestone events when I signed up for this residency, but had convinced myself that in the world of Skype and Snapchat, physical presence didn’t matter. It does.
I’m reminded that my grandmother came to this country expecting to never see her homeland or family again. Despite our national myths of intrepid independence, we are a nation built on homesickness.
Even the umbrella can’t save this painting from the rain.
My intention in this residency is two-fold: to explore the intersection of water, land and mankind, and to do some really big plein air landscapes in oils and watercolor. In the world of art, oil and water definitely do not mix; together they can create an archival disaster. So, being a concrete thinker, I plan to alternate them. Wednesday was an oil-painting day, Thursday was a watercolor day.
Rachel Alexandrou, the gardener-in-residence here, told me it would rain at 12:30. She was accurate to the minute. I hunkered down in my car, my salad on my lap, and watched the storm cross Damariscotta Lake. Excess humidity of any kind is tough on conventional watercolor paper. It turns out that it’s not good for Yupo, either.
A droopy, dreary day from within my car.
Yupo is a synthetic plastic substrate: cool, slick and contemporary. It’s the antithesis of organic. I like the way it takes watercolor, and its luminosity. However, it can be a jerk on a wet day. Water pools on the surface, and the paint is much more inclined to granulate than it does on paper.
Combined with intermittent rain, this made for nasty clumps of dark particles floating on the surface. The culprit appears to be what I thought was quinacridone violet. That’s not possible; that color isn’t granular at all. I have an imposter on my palette. I wonder what it is.
I switched to a quinacridone gold by QoR; it is clearer and brighter than whatever was on my palette.
I expected technical problems this first day, and I got them. My full-sheet drawing board, improvised from a folding presentation board, is too large for my swivel head easel. I don’t have my large brushes; they’re still in England.
There is a subtle change that happens when you finally relax and paint. You stop fussing at your materials and start translating what you see. I did eventually get there, or almost there. I hashed out a painting that’s mediocre in its drawing, rather muddy in its color, but interesting in its scribing. The beauty of Yupo is that it makes watercolor behave like no other paint.
What’s the end goal of this see-saw rotation of materials? If I knew what would happen, I wouldn’t bother trying. In this sense, experimentation with artist’s materials is vastly unscientific. We simply mix things up and watch. One in a hundred times it works, and when that happens, it’s magical.
Posted on

Do you dread writing an artist’s statement?

The artist’s statement is, unfortunately, not optional.
The float, by Carol L. Douglas. This is my first work out the gate at Joseph A. Fiore Art Center. I struggled with the aspect ratio. Is it done? Beats me.

Last week I wrote about getting into galleries. The artist who prompted that post responded, “I would much rather discuss how I feel my work communicates the essence of wilderness and why it’s important to preserve wild places, than trying to convince them that I’m an accomplished painter and would be an asset to their gallery. I’d be much more comfortable discussing the importance of making sure people develop an appreciation for the wild places left on our planet, than the merits of my paintings.”

She’s hit on a topic that most artists (including me) approach with dread: the artist’s statement. I’ve been mulling that over this week, because a residency can be about figuring out where you’re going as much as it is about producing new work.
My Mabef easel may nominally hold a 24×36 canvas, but in practice it’s too heavy. So it’s back to the Gloucester easel for oils.
An artist’s statement can be dull as dishwater or it can hit you between the eyes. My correspondent above is clearly passionate about wilderness; I’d be interested in her work just from the few sentences above.
We want our work to transmit our ideas non-verbally. Still, we are expected to write these statements. Our gallerists and collectors need a starting point for discussion.
Today I move over to Yupo and watercolor paper.
An artist statement generally contains:
  • An overview of one’s ideas;
  • An explanation of materials and process;
  • A personal statement of beliefs/philosophy;
  • A closing statement.

As a plein airpainter, there’s not much I can say about my materials; however, I can talk about my strong preference for painting from life instead of photos.
The first and last sections are great opportunities for pomposity, clichĂ©s, sophomoric writing and irrelevant anecdotes. As experienced as I am at writing, I’ve fallen into those traps. I look back on some of my artist’s statements and cringe.
What questions could you address?
  • What compels you in your current work?
  • Why did you make this specific body of work?
  • What are the spiritual, moral, or experiential underpinnings of your work?
  • What do you want your audience to take away from it?
  • How does this work relate to work you’ve done before?
  • Who or what are your inspirations?
  • Is there something unique about your technique?
  • What is your place in art history? How are you building on what’s been done before?
  • Is your painting tied to a specific place, a specific history, or a group of people?
I was so taken by Yupo last month that I ordered twenty full sheets of it. Here’s hoping it works as well in that size.
What points should you avoid?

  • Talking about how much you love art. Everyone does.
  • Quoting famous artists and/or poetry.
  • A minute description of your process, especially when it’s the same as everyone else’s process.
  • Your personal experience, unless it ties in with a greater theme.
  • “My work is interesting because
”
  • Comparing yourself to a famous artist.

Be spare in your prose, direct, and honest. Refer to yourself in the first person, not as ‘the artist.’ And expect to work on it for a while. If you really and truly can’t write, hire someone to help you; the artist’s statement is, unfortunately, not optional.
In practice, I’ve found that I need several different versions of artist statement (which are of course strewn all over my hard drive). There’s the short one for show applications, the longer one for gallerists, and the painfully long one that gets incorporated into press releases.