Watercolor plays with your mind. It moves on its own. I’m entranced with the magic of watercolor action. For me it’s a medium that is everything at once: amazing, mesmerizing, challenging, rewarding, and mystifying. Nearly always my time spent painting with watercolor is uplifting. Not to say that every artwork of mine is a keeper, because that would be a tall tale.

It intrigues me that my artistic style varies using in this medium, depending on the paper’s surface and on my mood. The styles range from loose to refined and from organic to structured. Each style has its own whimsical or evocative tone. And each painting has its own narrative.

Working with watercolor action is like playing a game with balls; there’s a requisite element of hand-eye coordination. But, the trinity: mind, body and medium, is what makes magic happen.

In “Stationery for Brooke”, I wanted to share a view of life outside my front window that felt fleeting. I painted knowing I was going to write a letter on the back to a dear friend. Thus, the style was extremely loose with minimal brushstrokes.

I like the action in this art piece. The energy emits from the bright masses of flowering vegetation, which jump out from the muted greens alluding to trees in the background.

In this piece, my palette was primarily Indian Yellow by Daniel Smith, Scarlet Lake and Manganese Blue Hue by Winsor Newton, and black.

Painting on printer paper

In this painting, I was using a 32-lb printer cartridge paper. As I played with the paint, it played with the paper’s surface. It’s definitely not what you’d want to use generally for a high-quality surface for water-based media because it’s absolutely not porous. Yes, the paint travels over the surface, and yes, it blends and blooms, but only to a very limited extent. More likely it stops traveling against your wishes where it pools in the ravines of the buckled paper.

If you’re use the printer paper in a loose style, for quick studies, and for playing around with your color palette, it serves a good purpose. Plus it’s inexpensive; typically, printer paper reams have 500 sheets and cost around $20. Also, the paper can be used with other media like gouache.

Artwork for friends

Once the paint dried, I scrawled a note in pencil on the back to my longtime friend Brooke, folded it up, and stuck it in outgoing mail.

By now, Brooke is used to my artwork splayed across handmade postcards, letters and envelopes. It’s been like this for several decades. She says she relishes their arrival and not just because these days it’s a rare event to receive anything handwritten. She appreciates the artwork as an expression of my affection. It’s always a win-win for both of us!