Watercolour revival

I remember when painting with watercolours started to make sense to me. It used to be a frustration and just short of a disaster, until one day it just clicked, when I realised I had to relax and stop controlling it, allow the paint do what it wants. Watercolour is a contradiction in itself- it both defies and favors the perfectionist. It still takes a lot of good planning before the actual painting starts, but then it is a little like colour-by-number, deciding which colours are the lightest and painting them first, then visually considering and identifying the nature of each particular tone and layering them on...like gossamer silks floating on each other. I used to thrive on highly detailed and realistic pencil drawings of Paris scenes and commissioned portraits, and for a long time I have enjoyed the totally opposite freedom and forgiving nature of acrylics and lighthearted mixed media work. But I have now been challenged into doing some 'serious' work again by a gallery specialising in framed works rather than canvas. The hardest part is always deciding what to paint, to pick a theme, a body of work that would be my focus for a while. Although the gallery is well-reputed, which is why I'm keen to get involved, it is slightly old-school and features a lot of botanical art. After conformingly staring at some of my flower photographs for hours and just not getting myself so far as to paint them, I remembered that I have always wanted to do something with the pics of old buildings I love to snap wherever we travel. So out came the charming old hotel in Gundaroo, a little stone church in Bungendore, and a whole list started lining up in my mind, so I started drawing and painting, and it just happily flowed from my hand. At last! I got my theme.

It's often difficult for me to decide if I need to accept a new challenge or opportunity, or if it is just diverting me from more important goals. In this case, after initial resistance, I found it a pleasure to change to a different medium and style again, refreshing to rediscover old skills and build upon them, to see how my ventures with other media have influenced and perhaps even improved my approach. So here is a photo sequence of the said hotel in progress and the end result, just to show that doing watercolours isn't rocket science. It is watery washes increasing in colour strength and decreasing in surface area. I have long been thinking about painting old buildings and churches of pictures taken back in South Africa, in Europe and here in Australia. The time has come. Bring it on! I just didn't think my body of work would be in watercolours, but that's the mystery of art.