Watercolor Painting
The image on the left is a watercolor painting I did on a side street here in Avalon. It was hard to work with watercolors after being trained in oils as the tecniques are completely reversed. In traditional representationsal oil painting, you basically lay the dark colors down first, then build up to brighter and lighter colors. When working with watercolors, you start with very light washes in the lightest areas of the painting and build up to darker areas and the very darkest shadows, etc. are painted last. I'm thinking of trying acrylic paints again (which is what I started with in high school) since you can get a very similar result to oils but without the toxicity and long drying time. The only thing that has prevented me from picking up acrylics again is the lack of luminosity they can have.
Watercolor Paintings Through Hand-Cut Stencils
LEFT - Casino Buildingin Avalon, CA - CENTER - Fountain in Metropole Marketplace - RIGHT - The Allied Seabreeze Yawl "Perdida"
The above paintings, created in 2005, were a result of my nesessity to find a process that was physically small, non-toxic and required very few tools or materials. Our 35 foot boat had very little space to store food, clothing and other nessisary items never mind art supplies. These small paintings were made by applying watercolor paint through a hand-cut acetate stencil. The paintings were only about 5 inches in size. I was able to store a few sheets of acetate, an X-acto knife, small pieces of Arches watercolor paper, some small tubes of watercolor paint and two or three brushes without infringing on our crammed quarters. I was also able to make editions of these "prints" and sold them, framed, in a small art gallery here on Catalina Island .
