Slow Life & The Watercolor Painting Process
"Dull as watching paint dry." You've all heard that one. Every time I hear that I think , I watch paint dry a lot, and I don't think it's so dull.
Rich Sigberman- Slow Heart
It takes a patient, slow approach to really enjoy and savor. That is part of a "slow living" approach, and by extension, I suppose it means that most artists are, by definintion, practicioners of slow living. We like to watch the paint dry. You may be an amateur hobbiest artist, or a professional. It doesn't matter, either way, you have to enjoy the process, the experience, the time consuming nature of creating art. This probably pertains to creating anything: a building, a garden, a human being. I'm only familiar with the first one, so that's what I'll write about. Much of my commercial art involves content that is for my clients. That's why drawing and painting these watercolor hearts are so much fun: they have no rules they need to conform to, and they're for no one in particular. They are made to be given away as gifts to anyone I think could use a little lift of spirit. I can, therefore, pretty much do whatever I want within the confines of the heart shape which I feel is a very graceful shape, and one that has enough pliability to avoid dull repetition.
There can be fat hearts, thin ones, symetrical or asymetrical hearts. All of them contain a nice amount of water in their big shapes in the top half .
The Lesson
It's easy enough to do: begin by lightly pencilling the shape. You might be surprised at the number of variations you can get with this one simple shape, it's almost infinite. Next, wet the whole shape within those pencil lines. Soak that watercolor paper, but make sure to not let the water go beyond your shape boundary. If it's quality watercolor paper, the water will quickly be absorbed, leaving a damp surface for you. When you're familiar with your paper, be it Hot Press (smooth surface) , or Cold Press( rough, textured surface), you'll know, nearly to the second, how long it will stay wet, and just how wet it will stay while the water evaporates. The applied paint reacts accordingly: the more damp the paper is, the more the paint will flow, or "bleed" across the paper. When you apply one coat of watercolor paint to a semi-wet piece of watercolor paper, and then soon add ANOTHER color to that same area, you will get a lovely and mostly unpredictable mixing of the two.
While the colors bleed, mix, and dry, just watch them do their thing. It's lovely. Unfortunately, they invariably look richer and shinier while they're still wet; once they dry they're never quite as vivid. Fortunately, though, watercolor is translucent, and so one can apply another coat of the same color, or colors, and deepened the color, make it more vivid, and richer. You can actually see one coat under another, and each time you apply another thin coat of the paint, the translucence gets richer, deeper, more vivid. It takes some time, some patience, and an almost meditative approach.
Immediate gratification is possible with watercolor, since its drying time is generally only a minute or two. You can take more time between applications of paint, than the actual application. So, what? You have something better to do, somewhere better to go? Watching the paint dry is more fun than nearly anything else I do, and it takes me places that are far away from my physical location. Combining this experience with some great music in the background completes the deal for me, making it an aural, visual , and tactile experience that I've never gotten tired of.
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