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  Grizrev Advanced Member Username: Grizrev Post Number: 169 Registered: 8-2006 |
We were getting some wonderful posts on this thread until I introduced a very mundane techie concern! Sorry! Can any others write as beautifully about the question this thread introduced as Marie and Bonnie have? By the way, Bonnie, did you get the clarification of the Turner quote on the thread "Religion and Art?" I can't remember. | ||
Grizrev Member Username: Grizrev Post Number: 45 Registered: 8-2006 |
Marie, in keeping with the interest in gleaning some of the best posts and organizing them in a more accessible manner, I notice that there are some good posts on impressionism and painting styles or schools in "More Plein Air." I see that discussions often move beyond the boundaries of the thread topic into other areas, and we need to gather up all the "straying sheep" into their proper subjects. | ||
Marie Senior Member Username: Marie Post Number: 213 Registered: 8-2006 |
John Singer Sargent is my favorite -- no doubt about it. I picked up a book of his watercolors in 2000, and it blew me away. They're much more radical than his oils, and more radical than the impressionists. I love the tension between realism and abstraction -- a look at something once and it's a tree (or whatever) and the next second it's a totally abstract brush mark. Wow! That's what got me interested in doing watercolor. The other historical watercolorist I love is J.M.W. Turner ... for much the same reason I love Sargent. Some contemporary favorites are Trevor Chamberlain, John Yardley, and Arne Westerman. Personally, I think watercolor is at it's best when it's loose and wet .... when the pigments run and drip. I like watercolors that scream *watercolor* -- paintings that couldn't exist in any other medium. It's the tension between control and wildness, between abstraction and realism that I find most exciting. | ||
Whitewatercolor Advanced Member Username: Whitewatercolor Post Number: 151 Registered: 10-2006 |
These are all good questions, I'll attempt to answer one... I think I was born with an interest in art, at least it started very young. Watercolor just happened to be the first thing I picked up and my first watercolor was recognized by a teacher and included in a traveling student art show. I grew up in a rural area where art was not considered to be important. (I feel this background is important to set the stage for my comments on my favorite artist.) My first exposure to watercolor as an adult wasn't until a decade later. It was a class with the local Judge's wife. An unknown teacher who had studied with another local unknown artist. I used the library, skipping from book to book, over the next few years, getting into some local shows (thanks to small-town cooperative galleries). I think from the first time we pick up a brush we have something we want to show the world. If we all saw the world the same, I know we couldn't do the things we do for money. Just in my lifetime I've seen the landscape change tremendously. I can't think of anything that moves me more than an ancient tree--so much history, so much life, so much beauty--part of the web of life that will not again be replaced in human history. Obviously others don't see that or they wouldn't cut it down just because they have to rake the leaves or for a few bucks for a new car, that will be junk in 20 years. Somehow I've convinced myself that by recording the incredible beauty on paper, I may influence others to stop and take a look and think twice about the value of what surrounds them. I taught myself techniques, mostly from books. I spent a lot of time in a very large bookstore that has a huge room dedicated to the arts. I spent hours looking at the work of masters, trying to determine what made their art worthy of the ages. Then one day I was waiting for a table in a restaurant and walked across the street to a used bookstore to kill time. I picked up a book and saw the work of JWM Turner. It brought tears to my eyes and goose bumps to my arms. I found it. I found someone whose work I considered to be incredible. There was a paragraph about him looking out the window of a train, in the rain, trying to see how the light looked through the rain. That is exactly what I would have done. Then I read that his dying words were "God is Light," which is a statement that is as controversial today as it was then, but a statement that I agree with. Since that time I've spent many hours in the bookstore, comparing his work with others. I haven't found anyone whose work I like better. That said, I'd say that Skip Lawrence is probably my favorite contemporary painter. I don't know why. I guess it is probably that I have never seen a piece of his work that I found a fault with. They all elicit strong emotional response from me and I absolutely love his use of color in his later works. I know they aren't transparent watercolor, it doesn't matter. They are wonderful to me. Bonnie | ||
Grizrev Member Username: Grizrev Post Number: 30 Registered: 8-2006 |
It seems to me that the loose style of painters like John Yardley and Ted Seago continue aspects of the Impressionist School into the present time. What "schools" or historic styles of painting most influence your personal style? What styles of painting are most dominant in watercolor painting today? Does our period of history have a distinctive style of its own, or does everyone just do their own thing (anything and everything)? Who are your favorite painters in the history of watercolor, and which have most influenced your style? What is your "impression" of what constitutes the best in watercolor painting? |
