Watercolors from the 90's

My great teacher, Arthur L. Guptill, gives his fealings on Watercolor in his book, Watercolor Painting Step-By-Step. "Watercolor has long been my favorite medium of pictorial representation -- at least so far as my own painting is concerened -- so whenever I have taught it, or have had the oportunity to write about it, I have been able to do so with unusual enthusiasm. Why do I like watercolor so well? Partly because it always seems to me such a joyous medium. Good watercolor paintings are customarily so crisp and clean-cut, so spontaneous, so alive. Watercolor also seems to me a miraculous medium, permitting maximum reslts with a minimum of time and effort." (pg. 11)

I chose watercolor because the colors mixed so easly and beautifully, like magic. I soon found that watercolor would be far more dificult than I had imagined. One paints backwards in watercolor, reserving the lights while seeking to create the darker values and colors. And one can never cover up a mistake in watercolor.

In the early 90's I was studying art with Rob McKay. I tried some paintings. None are worth sharing, but they got me going. Later I tryed some on my own.

This series is of the "Greatest Men of the Twentieth Century"

Wilson

Gandhi

Churchill

Reagan

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I also tried one of my friend and a great teacher,

Dave Brimhall.

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I took a class in Watercolor at the University of Utah. There were training exersizes and studies. It was a great opertunity.

Then I put my study to work in the class asingments.

This one was inspired by Inherit the Wind, a play I was directing at the high school.

As a teacher of Ancient Histoy, I tried my hand at the pyramids.

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I was on my own again all too soon. I tried copying; this from a book of botanical art.

I closed out the 90's with some careful studies of my own, these are on color mixing and flesh tones.

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