This is the first abstract watercolour I have attempted in a while when I first painted the background and then the subject.
It features part of a purple to pink airhead against a graduated background of green through yellow to orange with sponged decoration.
I am pleasantly surprised with the result.
I will brazenly prostitute myself for the chance of being rewarded with free stuff. I am delighted if a free cloth bag contains paper and pens. And boy do I hoard them.
Around a decade ago in Sydney, the local office supply company, Office Works were giving customers a bag weighed down with pencils, pens, pencil case, and bookmarks.
The pink, green, and purple ink pens used in today’s mixed media abstract picture are from that boon. I used the pens to outline the ovoids, washed over with watercolour and drew the shapes again on top.
The stamped circles were outlined in Lipton’s decaffeinated tea with paint added while wet.
My first watercolour and ink abstract; flight of fancy.
I painted the watercolour first then overlaid purple ink. I also had a go at watercolour stamped rings using the rim of a drinking glass.
I may go back to add some more bubbles.
I think it depends on how one measures the journey, in time or in distance. Also, there are many milestones and enjoyable deviations along life’s path.
26 years ago we moved from Birmingham, UK to Sydney, Australia, 17,034 km. The journey took three flights and a couple of nights’ stopover in Singapore. It is a distant memory.
When travelling, I prefer to get to where I am going as quickly as possible so that I can maximise the time at the destination.
In comparison to the UK, distances in Australia are gargantuan. The UK is about 965 km north to south. Our move from Sydney to Brisbane in 2018 was 1,000 km, a ten hours drive.
We continue to enjoy our shared highway of 30 years together in the UK and Australia. The ups and downs have brought us closer and reinforced our commitment to each other. We appreciate spending valuable time with our dear friends. The moments shared with them are like dazzling jewels along our road.
This week’s abstract watercolour fits in with the journeying theme. It was inspired by my husband suggesting overlapping ovoids might be interesting.
It took a number of weeks for the idea to sprout into a possibility. On plan it is a bridge made up of piles of alternating purple and green rock hoops topped with an orange capstone. I tried out the concept in Freeform on the iPhone and sketched it with coloured pencils before attempting to paint it free hand.
One of the artists I follow on Instagram posted a video of the painting of three green, purple, olive solid overlapping circles in portrait. Over this a stem and dense large leaves were added. Using a pen, lines and dots were added to alternate leaves. Then something else was added, I cannot remember what, probably flowers. I would have stopped at the three circles. I liked the simplicity of the forms, the colours, and the spatial calm.
Yesterday, I added green, yellow, and purple pencil bubbles to the abalone shell inspired watercolour from last week.
The original abstract abalone shell reflects my aim for an ‘ideal’ restrained and constrained abstract watercolour. The result evoked a meh response from me. Internally, I wrestled with the original is okay, I may make it worse if I do anything to it. Down the track, I would have earmarked it as a failure, turned the sheet over and painted on the back.
I now love the pimped up version and for the Internet, the addition of a Google Snapseed pop filter. It is sort of my first mixed media picture.
Being creative energises and stimulates my mind. Planning, researching, and working up a concept for a watercolour is fun. The execution is an intense balance of speed, improvisation, allowing the paint and paper media to work their magic, and not overworking the image.
The painting process is often over too quickly and my inner critic is harsh.
Inspired by a stone trefoil with coloured glass, this abstract picture is carrying on the ovoid shapes theme with the colours intermingling rather than having hard edges.
I used left over paint from the previous watercolour with some extra colours.
As a teenager, I signed my work with Rx and the year of production. As I am tapping into the creativity of my inner child, I have revived this tradition.
I was unsurprised this morning when we awoke to a gloomy sky soon to be followed by rain. The forecasters advise this is a wet patch in the otherwise dryish El Nino weather pattern. As South East Queensland is subtropical, we catch a bit of Far North Queensland’s wet season around February anyway.
Faced with continued inclement weather, I decided to paint an abstract watercolour picture to brighten our day. Overall I’m pleased with the intensity of colours and the way the washes ran into each other.
The photograph is more blue than the turquoise of the actual picture even after adjusting the colour balance.
Back in the eighties, I was gifted a set of Daley Rowney Georgian tubes of watercolour; I still have them. At the time, I was inspired to paint a hotel doorway in Whitby, UK and the view from riding pillion. I will post pictures of them when they resurface.
Over the decades that followed, I dabbled with watercolour painting. Lacking confidence because of my self doubt and fears of failure, of not being any good, and of looking stupid, I have hidden and stifled my art enthralled inner child.
Sixtieth birthday gifts included, Mont Marte A3 paper blocks and a compact Winsor and Newton Cotman watercolour set.
On the day of our thirtieth anniversary, on the way to lunch by ferry, we narrowly missed a heavy downpour on the Noosa River. The first picture is a representation of the malevolent view from our table at Lucio’s Mariner, Tewantin.
With a need to suspend my self disbelief, to allow my inner child to stretch their arms and reconnect with its creativity, I have opted to have a go at abstract painting.
The second painting is a section of my inner vision of the occasion, an abstract sky. Freed from the heavy constraints of assumption and expectation, it represents a lightness of hearts and a hope-filled future. My mind sees other shapes there too.
This conceptional style of painting allows me to experiment with the properties of the watercolour medium and normalises the reduced dexterity brought on by aging. It accommodates less than nimble and unintended jerky movements.
The third painting reflects a vegetation lined riverbank.
I don’t feel comfortable with the whole abstract image. My inner critic believes there is a disconnect between the ‘sky’ and the ‘earth’.
Here it is for your review.
theINFP 