My mind’s been wandering to watercolor painting during recent bicycle rides. Wondering about watercoloring as a way of seeing and becoming acquainted and interpreting. Watercolor as a way of knowing. A way of storytelling.
I’m hoping to make time this fall for a fresh foray into watercolor painting. It’s been a while. A long while!
Just about everything I cast eyes upon is begging to be added to the list of images to paint. The orchard’s colorful fruit and lush summer foliage, for example. The Amish man, horse, and buggy trundling past Rosslyn early this morning, silhouetted against a magnificent sunrise…
And Señorita Serendipity seems to approve of my plans. While brainstorming a punchlist of September/October watercolors, recent August skies appear to have been watercolored by the universe. Another portentous twist of fate: my enfatuation with bygone barns was concurrently satisfied during two recent bike rides, orchestrating the watercolor sky plus barn snapshots I was able to share earlier today with a “Backcountry Barns Haiku.
Time torn, weatherworn
byways by backcountry barns.
Watercolor skies.
After yesterday’s runaway rumination on wavy window glass (with a nod at watercolors), this quick post was practically born of necessity.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CS9iHSCrE6a/
I’m sure I’ve touched on this elsewhere over the years, but it’s worth acknowledging that barn architecture, especially minimalist barns, patinated with weather and time, speaks to something practically primordial in me. My earliest hope when looking for a North Country properties was to convert an old barn into a home. I looked at lots of backcountry barns, but I never made a match. Some day I still hope to explore the barn vernacular, perhaps in a modern and somewhat interpretive way.
Until then I’m going to keep massaging this watercolor metaphor a little longer.
Maybe once I dip my brush into paint this fall more meaningful observations will materialize. Perhaps I’ll be able to better articulate why watercoloring (and wavy glass, for that matter) are helping me decipher and describe my process, my pleasure, and my goals.
For now, and for this post, I’ve returned to the Waterlogue app by Tinrocket to create this (and other recent) digital watercolors. I’ve always used the iOS version beacuase it’s a well tuned flaneur’s tool, always at hand, always handy for a quick “field sketch”. After snapping a photograph I usually import it into the Snapseed app by Google for some pre-watercolor tuneups to creatively manipulate the results in a way that will render a digital watercolor that suits my vision. Then into Waterlogue for some empirical playtime… And voila!
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