Loose

I have a really hard time painting loosely. The unfinished stroke, the color allowed to bleed in whatever direction it likes, the touch of a brush that doesn't specifically delineate anything—these are things that for the most part escape me. I'd like to be a looser, more expressive painter, but there's something in me that just can't resist "fixing" things instead of letting them be.

I have also never mastered the art of wet-in-wet painting—it's an exacting process whereby you become intimately familiar with exactly how wet or on-its-way-to-dry a particular passage has to be in order to successfully add to it without wrecking it.

So when I say that I'm pretty pleased with this painting, please take all those things into account. I realize, looking at it, that it's overworked, and not terribly spontaneous-looking—but the areas of white left alone to glint, the mix of dark and light greens and browns and grays in back that allow the major colors to pop—all these make me happy, despite the areas where I can see I should have stopped five strokes sooner to preserve the effect I wanted.

I will keep practicing this. It's something that I have occasionally been able to incorporate into a portrait, but I lack that spontaneity there as well. Perhaps one effort will feed the other.

"30x21_Mary'sDahlias"—PJ watercolors in Bee mixed media sketchbook.