Watercolor West, Part 2

If you add too many photos into Blogspot, sometimes it freaks out and starts rearranging both photos and captions willy nilly. After struggling for awhile and losing about a third of my post, I decided to put up this Watercolor West piece in two parts! So on to Part 2.

The atmosphere was what drew me to these next four, which are all very different.

Patricia M. Dispenziere, Play of Light II, 18x24

Look at the reflection on that tabletop, and the light that is so blinding you almost want to squint. The back-lighting of the sewing machine is beautiful.

Fealing Lin, On the Road Again, 15x21

I don't know whether to rave about light, technique, or story in this one, so...all three!

Marilyn Miller, Printemps, 30x22

The color. The color! Wow, the color.

John Salminen, One Way, 36x24

The wealth of detail, the night-time palette, the storytelling...

This portrait blew me away:

Phyllis Tseng, Maybe, Just Maybe, 12x16

The combination of the smooth, subtle tonal transitions in the background with the almost splashy delineation of features with vibrant color in the foreground was delicious, and add to that the accuracy and detail of the features themselves...really impressive.

This next picture grabbed me because of its colors and simplicity that felt almost like a fairy tale illustration. There was also a technique evident that I would love to know how to do--I wish I could have tea with the artist and ferret out her secret! Around the edges of things, there are little tiny outlines of different colors, almost like there are multiple underwashes--yellow under the blue, orange under the yellow, green under the orange--that she very carefully left to peek through. It's really hard to see in a photo, but it gives an enchanting quirkiness to this picture.

Joyce Hicks, Depot by the River, 24x18

And my final choice had that "magnetic quality" the juror talked about, from the flow of light to the beautiful color transitions to the wealth of story. If I absolutely had to pick a favorite, I think this would be it.

Htun Tin, Serene Village, 21x29

So there you have it--my top 16 out of 100 watercolors. But honestly, there were another half dozen I could have put here in their places with equal satisfaction and pleasure, and who knows? If I saw the exhibit again next week, I might choose a completely different set to share.

This exhibit daunted and awed me, but it also inspired me. There were a few paintings I could imagine myself maybe being able to paint, a few I could aspire to soon (with hard work), a few I could maybe master with another couple of years (or maybe a decade!) of study, and some to which I will never presume. But it definitely made me see what vision, perseverance, and talent can produce!