Adventures in Watercolor

Featured Painting of the Month

Shattered Reality #3
Watercolor - 15"x22" - $550 (unframed)
S. Parsons ©2009

Artist Statement

I attended Pratt Institute of NY in the 70s to earn a masters degree and at that time if you painted the “scene” or “stillife” in any realistic way you would flunk out of the program.  The abstract expressionists were all the rage and any art worth doing was worth throwing paint at the canvas.  In spite of this I had teachers who knew and taught that abstract art required even more planning and organization than a well-rendered tree. 

This is a half sheet watercolor that I completed a couple of years ago – many years after those years at Pratt.  I designed a large major shape and used that shape to direct the viewer’s eye.  My mentor Zornes said, “A good composition is nothing more or less than making the viewer look where you want them to look.”

Notice how I have used dark shapes to emphasize the areas of movement through the painting and the repetitive curvilinear shapes to unify the image.  This painting includes pieces of collage in the mid-tones and dark areas and spraying mists of watercolor in the lights to create subtle changes. 

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