Granulation

Perspectives from the Artist's Road

Watercolor can do things that other painting media cannot. Although I paint in oil, pastel and casein, I always return to watercolor whenever I want to really challenge myself as a painter. First, it requires complete and total focus —no phones, no breaks. To paint really well, one must thoroughly and intimately know the behaviors of the medium and the living relationships that develop between the paint, the paper and the environment as one paints. To do all that while the clock is ticking (for washes are only “alive” for so long), is a performance and a dance with a lovely partner who has little tolerance if one doesn’t know the steps!

One of the fascinating and unique characteristics of the medium is inherent in the formulations of the pigments. Watercolors come in two forms, the sedimentaries and the stainers. Sedimentaries can generally be thought of as relatively coarse-ground earth colors—umbers, ochres, and the like, although many blues and reds are also sedimentary in nature.…