a few things about the watercolors
Wednesday, January 16, 2008 at 12:45PM there are a few things about the watercolors. things i need to say.
the first is this: they’re not my medium. i mean, i play with them, and i enjoy playing with them, but watercolor is not what i pick up when i actually want to paint. really paint. i’ve been wondering why that is these last few days, as i’ve been sitting at the kitchen table with brush in hand and the most lovely, translucent colors dripping all around me. they’re fun, these watercolors. they’re lovely to look at. so, so easy to set up and clean up (which is a highly attractive quality when compared to the oil paints i generally use). but really, i don’t know how to handle the watercolors. i don’t know how to make the paints do what i want them to do. though it occurs to me that there might be something to that - something freeing about not being bound by any sense of what i ought to be doing. yes, in fact, i’m sure there’s something to it.
the other thing is this. my dad was a watercolor painter. a real, live watercolor painter. he painted still life, and he painted landscape. and he practiced law, because my grandparents didn’t think that being a painter, or a poet, was a suitable profession. but my father painted with passion. and he painted with me. even as a small child, i had a little blue art bin just like his big one, and my very own set of materials and supplies (maybe because he didn't want to share his own!?). and he treated me like i was a real artist, my dad. he was something.
so when i bring out the watercolor paints, i feel him. i do. even though we use little trays of pre-filled color and i almost never take out his box of brushes and paints, his palette that still has dried-up blobs of color across its surface. i feel his presence, but I also feel some pressure. it’s as though, if i’m really, truly, and actually going to paint with watercolor, my painting has to be worthy, somehow. it must live up to my father’s expectations, to his memory. i feel that pressure somewhere inside of myself. and so i don’t even try to paint with watercolors. i only play with them. and it's lots of fun.
revealing.
(painting by my dad, hanging in my kitchen)
it has been revealing for me, this little foray into watercolor. and after thinking it over, i’ve decided that i'm going to keep playing with these paints. playing by myself, playing with my kids. and one day soon, i don’t know which day it will be, but i know it will be soon, i’m going to bring out my dad’s box of paints. and we’ll play with those, too. we’ll play, and we’ll play, and we’ll see where we go from there.
Reader Comments (11)
this is a truly lovely post, emily.
i have that same blue 'art bin' but it is only full of half-used supplies from when i thought myself to be an art major, no lovely stories.