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SAMPLE PAGE WATERCOLOR BASICS By Wendy Soneson Why Paint With Watercolors? Those of us hooked on watercolor keep coming back to the compelling medium, which is like a fascinating but frustrating lover we can’t quit. Yes, we know the down side: difficult corrections, lower prices for the finished work, and lesser status in the art world, along with that maddening liquid element: WATER. It moves; it floats; it is invisible; and until we see it as a partner rather than our rival for control of the pigment, we cower in respect for its power. But if we don’t give up too soon, we are seduced by the magical effects it can produce: depicting light like no sticky acrylic ever could. True, we “don’t get no respect “in the commercial world, where oil paintings the same size demand three to ten times the dollars, even though everyone knows watercolor is more difficult. No one can imagine Pollack throwing around buckets of watercolor: it is just not a very macho medium, although the tenacity and strength it takes to endure watercolor’s fickle nature can take a real man’s patience and control. Real men may think they need to gravitate to heavy oils or acrylics, and in a way they are more masculine in that they are opaque and heavy. Homer and Sargent proved watercolor is just as powerful as any medium, and their paintings are testament to the masculine side of watercolors. But you have to admit, the mercurial nature of watercolor, the way they interact silently with the cotton fibers unpredictably, does have a certain feminine mystic to it. Why then do men or women subject themselves to this difficult task of constantly trying to sense interactions of water, pigment and cotton? It has to be the product, the way only watercolor can glow. For me it is also the process. I get lost in the dynamic for hours - feeling the humidity in the air, the water in the paper and paint, until I become one with the art materials. Add in a little “Water Music”, and the fact that we all are 90 percent water (NOT plastic or oil) and I begin to explain to myself WHY. Why not retreat to the ease and comfort of lovely opaque paint that can cover any misstep, the characteristic of almost all other flat media? Simply put: I love the dance. |