I started my artist’s life early in watercolor classes after school, and the flow of paint over paper enchants me still. I see the magic everywhere without making it up anywhere.
Every shape and tone and shade really existed at the moment I saw it in nature, so when I paint every part, and every part between the part, is whole.
A “big” painting in acrylic on matte board takes me a year
to complete. An underpainting of
Hooker’s Green and Prism Violet creates a foundation of detail.
Ten or more layers
of complexly mixed colors are laid over this foundation, like building a symphony of color above the base notes.
Broad washes of color tone the
temperature and emotion to finish the work.
Luther Burbank said; "Nature is an exacting mistress and a jealous teacher; she does not reveal herself wholly to the amateur or the dabbler, and she will not cooperate fully and generously with the man who takes her lessons or her work lightly."
Such is the shamanic lesson of a bank of ferns and brush beside a gravel road. It asks of the student, "How do you like the Underworld?"
