Day 25: Fountains, Water & Sky
There are a few subjects that I adore and that I come back to time and time again. This fountain in the park near my studio is one of those subjects.
I think I go back to it over and over because it is so complex- the drawing, the water, the light is different each and every time. Whatever the exact reasons it is one of my muses and I just cannot get enough.
Fontana del Giglio
Watercolor on Paper
10 x 6″
$115 | Available
Besides just the complex drawing of the forms of the fountain, capturing the water coming off of it can be tricky. I have to think ahead and leave the white of the paper and paint around where the water would be. This sounds easy enough, but let me tell you- when you are there with a brush fully loaded with paint and water, just putting it down and moving the brush, guiding the paint without stopping takes more guts to just try something than know how!
Of course know how helps, and well the only way to get this know how is through the doing of the thing. Lots of mistakes. This is where oil paint and watercolor diverge. In oil paint I could scrape away and try again, fiddle and fuss until I think it looks “just right”.
I like this so much about watercolor- it seems a small thing, but really it’s not. Gaining the courage to just “go for it” is something we can all do more of all of the time and revel in the mistakes and beautiful passages alike.
Watercolor makes me accept the imperfections as perfect. If it is really just bad painting, then of course that is not the same thing. If a mistake or imperfection works overall in the painting then I just accept it, even if it is not what I had in mind.