I looked at a work of mine that I entitled, “School memories”. This art work depicts an old school building in Jeddah and it is a watercolour and ink work. When I saw the watercolour blotches which I added on purpose for this series I did, I thought of the properties of watercolour as a medium, and why artists are still intrigued by it. This work, is actually a mixed media work, because I tried to “over-rule” a few watercolour characteristics by adding ink outlines and using intense aquarelle pencils to boost the colour.
I discovered watercolour in my high school art class, back in the early 1980’s and I enjoyed working with this exciting free-flowing medium. However, to be honest, I became a little scared of this independent medium, because I understood that I do not have complete control over the flow of the water, which is the wonder of watercolour, I suppose. The freedom of the medium causes the artist to become a participant, in search of “happy accidents”. Sergei Bongart said, “Watercolor is like life. Better get it right the first time – you don’t get a second chance!” So, to me, watercolour as a medium was tinged with a stress factor and perhaps an element of mystery too.
For about two decades I did not work with watercolour, simply because I was working in oil colour and acrylic. I understood that acrylics had “upstaged” watercolour as a medium and that people were looking for brighter art works to buy. Futhermore, a watercolour work is done on paper and it has to be framed behind glass, whereas a work in oil or acrylic, on a stretched canvas, can be sold as it is.
During the late 1990’s I discovered a few watercolour manuals by Ron Ranson which sparked my interest for a while, but I never took it further at that stage, simply because I was trying to find my feet as a teacher. I rediscovered watercolour as a delightful medium again in 2012, when I landed in Saudi Arabia.
I decided to make small spontaneous watercolour sketches to process the impressions of the new vistas that wanted to flow out of my mind onto the paper. This led to a series of 15 small spontaneous works and three years later, I made another series of 10 works, and “School memories” comes from that batch. You can see here, as I mentioned in the first paragraph, this watercolour work is more structured, when one looks at the black outlines, for example. This method of mine allowed me a measure of control which the traditional way of working does not.
Now, I have a confession to make: I enjoy both methods, but what bothered me a little when I made my “controlled” series, was that I never quite knew when to stop. I felt I was “responsible” to ensure the work looked “spontaneous”; I ran the risk of overworking the little sketch. Even though I am a little apprehensive of the traditional watercolour method, I do realise that it is truly a faster and more exciting way of working (obviously depending on one’s style and intentions).
So, the point I want to make is: the freedom of watercolour makes one a participant; restricting or controlling the innate properties of the medium forces one to imitate freedom and that takes ten times longer and one always feels one needs to do more. Fortunately, both methods can provide beautiful outcomes and we simply need to decide, whether we want to choose freedom that comes with a little “fear factor” or control that requires endless calculated determined strokes. (It sounds a little like life again, doesn't it?)
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