Flight - The Odd Piece Out

Flight  10 x 23

When I first learned watercolor and UNM I had two professors. One, Smith, taught me glazes and details and how much time can go into a painting even in a fast drying medium like watercolor. The other, Lewis, restricted us to a ten color palate, loved plein aire, and admired the brushing of the Chinese. The two approaches often war within me. One would consider Flight a mere sketch, the other would say, "Good, now don't over-work it."

After the laboring over The Long Return it was good to just splash down a few colors on Flight. And isn't winter about experimentation? And is it an experiment? A tentative step in a new direction? Or a return to my roots? And what do you do with the odd piece out? Hang it in your studio or your bedroom? Certainly you never enter it in an exhibit or put it in your fair booth for people to remark, "A bit of a different palate for you."

But it is the same palate. All these colors were already there on the studio table. There are still the pinks and lavenders and yellows the casual visitor to canyons doesn't believe are there. Just more of the carbon black (both professors were opposed to black) and burnt sienna than is usual. And my usual ravens are there casting shadows on the canyon wall. I have used salt for texture in the foreground but I have also played around with a granulation medium. And brushing with a barely wet brush. One I have feathered out. It really figured very prominently in the rendering of the lacquer on the cliff face.

It is nice to stretch once in a while. To go where you have not been. To take flight as it were.