Watercolor Wanes

View Toward Palermo from Monreale, Sicily. Watercolor, 8" x 8"

My trusty travel box of watercolors has been a good companion during the pandemic: even though I was going precisely nowhere, seeing it on my desk was often an incentive to do a sketch, and the small size of my sketchbook and the paintbox seemed to work in our small apartment, where there's no place to spread out, or set up an easel. Though I went up to the studio once a week or so, just to check on things, I didn't do any artwork there because we weren't really comfortable staying very long. Too many young people and random strangers, too few masks worn in the hallways both by other renters and workmen (although they were required), and the necessity of using shared bathrooms. After getting a first dose of vaccine, I felt better about it, and now that I've had the second, I will work there more. Today, in fact, I started a large pastel and it felt like such a relief to work big, and in a different medium. There's no way I could do a pastel in the apartment, the process is way too messy.

The Lower Lake at Parc Lafontaine. Watercolor, 8" x 8".

So I'm wondering if maybe these late spring watercolors are the last I'll do for a while. Probably not, but part of the loosening of restrictions for me feels like it ought to include a creative expansion: bigger work in pastels, oil, and maybe some prints. Besides, I'm just tired of struggling with watercolor, the most difficult medium of all, and working so small. I need a break, and to shake myself up!

Rocky bank with wild irises. Ink drawing with sailor fude pen and Noodler's "El Lawrence" ink. 6" x 9".

 

Same subject in watercolor in sketchbook, 6" x 9".

Part of pandemic-mentality has been "making do" with less-than-optimum situations, hasn't it? To the point where the limitations start to seem normal. I think it takes a bit of effort to shake ourselves out of these routines and patterns, even if we didn't especially like them in the first place. It's odd, but I think that kind of adaptation and forgetfulness is part of human nature. My lack of enthusiasm has been evident to me lately in the infrequency of work; something needed to change.

So these may be the last watercolors I post for a while. What you see next will be quite different!

Comments

[Jean]

All these are exquisite work, I think. They give me so much pleasure. I hope they won't be diminished for you by their unhappy associations - in time not, anyway.

[Beth]

Dear Jean, thanks for all these kind words. I'm glad you've enjoyed the paintings! I have too and don't worry, the artwork I've done during this time has been a sustaining pleasure, and I'm sure the watercolors will remain a big part of what I do. In a few days there will be a new book out at Phoenicia with Magda Kapa's poems written from March 2020 - March 2021, and twelve of my drawings mostly done during the same time. Neither the poems nor the drawings are specifically about the pandemic but rather about daily life and the smaller things. For me, it's about how art keeps us going through thick and thin -- as your posts have shown all along too.

[Edward Yankie]

These are beautiful! I suspect your lack of enthusiasm is noticeable to you alone. Looking forward to your next post. It's good to shake things up.

[Marly]

Oh, these are charming watercolor pieces, Beth. And I look forward with curiosity to a different scale, different media--whatever comes of your itch to do something new!

[Beth]

Someone left a comment on my blog post today, with a link to this post on Substack from An Irritable Metis. It includes a poem by David Budbill, a Vermont Buddhist poet who I always admired. The post is excellent, if hard to read, but what really got to me were the comments, which are from both Canadians and Americans talking about the authors question, What can we do?

(If you have trouble loading the comments, it worked better for me to click on the comment icon at the bottom of the original post.)

B.