A Painting A Day: Day Three

My sister, Linda talks about the "quilt police"  who are the ones who think quilting should adhere to a set of standards and never deviate  from the traditional standards.  She is not a traditionalist when it comes to quilting.  Although my subject matter is pretty traditional  I, too, do not adhere to the purist standards when it comes to painting. 

Day Three: Bougainvillea
(8 x 10 Watercolor & Soft Pastel)

Years ago, when I first began to do watercolor I remember hearing a woman I admired for her artwork complaining at a local art show.  Her complaint was over a beautifully drawn picture that was a pen & ink with watercolor.  I looked at it and was impressed by the technical skill of the drawing and the technical skill of the brush strokes.  My friend claimed she was a purist when it comes to watercolor and the two mediums should not be mixed.  After that I made sure to adhere to the purist watercolor rules because I did not want to be her next victim.  It was not until many years later that I began to think about how art is about experimentation.  The names we recognize were the non-traditionalist artists among their peers.  They took risks and did something no one else would do.  Often their new style of painting was not widely accepted but eventually these artists changed the look of art throughout history. 

Now that is not to say I like all types of art.  There are some I never mention to my students at school because my students think, "if Jackson Pollock made it but throwing paint on a canvas so can I".  One year I went to the back of the room and found just that...paint all over the room because a couple of my students wanted to be Jackson Pollock!  I wanted to throw some stuff around about then, too, in fact, I wanted to throw a couple of boys but I restrained myself and handed them the cleaner and rags. Teaching is a great exercise in patience! Don't you think, Patricia?  I'll bet you and I could swap stories!

All that to say that this little painting started off randomly colored with primary colors in a light wash of color and allowed to dry all before I did the drawing on the paper.  In fact, I did not even know what the drawing was going to be.  I figured I was going to let the colors lead me. Once I established my plan of action, and started painting I found some of my colors were not as vivid as I wanted due to an underlying color previously applied.  In the end I opted to bring back some lost colors using my new Prismacolor NuPastels purchased after Spring Break.  The pastel was applied lightly (with no smudging) so the original watercolor shows through. (By the way, I am not the originator of this idea. Jeannette Cuevas has been doing it for years and her work is beautiful.)

I haven't got an idea what tomorrow's painting will be.
I'll think I will sleep on it. 
After all....tomorrow is a new day!