In TRANSPARENT watercolor, the combination of surrender and control is a fine balancing act, with the ever-changing light, the  wet-to-dry continuum, and the varying properties of the paints, themselves.  It is invigorating to internalize the actual physics of the process and to expand in the freedom of painting more intuitively.

For me, it’s about being inspired by the subject, and about impressions one can create of light and rhythm, color, composition and value, and the delicious feeling of successfully capturing a fleeting moment.

It’s another whole psychological discipline to achieve this ‘en plein aire’, or ‘out in the open air’, with changing light, wind, heat, cold, dust, sand, etc., and watercolor is an unforgiving medium!  Ah, but how bright and fresh and satisfying, (light bouncing off white paper and back up, through translucent pigment!) with a glow and transparency achievable in no other medium.

Out there in the great open Western spaces, I awake to the Realization that I am a part of Nature.  John Muir summed up the way I feel about this experience of unity, belonging, and expanding consciousness, when he said, “We are now in the mountains and they are in us, kindling enthusiasm, making every nerve quiver, filling every pore and cell of us.”

I I hope the work inspires some of the same feelings in you, the viewer.