Watercolors in Worship

This morning I wrestled to complete some projects, but remembered the importance of the Sabbath. Instead of jumping headlong into work, I sat to paint. It has been a long time since I pulled out my brushes, but was overwhelmed how well these works flowed out.

The time spent working out the thickness of the watered-down pigment and waiting for areas to dry reminded me of the organic flow of work. Beginning with a simple outline sketch then moving into the details of each element sent my mind racing to the significance of each stroke. Mistakes made me stop and evaluate how to incorporate them into my work.

I was reminded of the depiction of creation in C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia, as Aslan breathed into existence the elements of a new world. There was a kinship with the Creator as I interpreted his world in my own humble way.

Here are photos of the finished works.

Apple, Cheese and Milk

This still-life captures a simple snack. I wanted to begin my painting slowly and simply. The painting is made with basic colors, incorporating the design elements of color, space, and texture. The green plate was a happy accident, as I started with white, but found my cheese was washed out. The green allowed me to showcase the glass of milk too. Much of painting is in not painting what isn't there. Incorporating a clear glass of white milk allowed me to do this by defining where the milk is and the edge of the glass then painting with a washed out blue where the glass should show through. Light flows nicely across the painting from right to left with the fron corner of the table showing dark. This was another significant element that happened as I worked.

Orange

As I waited for an extra-wet area of Apple, Cheese and Milk to dry, I played with pointillism. Pointillism is a method of breaking an image into dots. Just to keep myself engaged I used the color orange to make an orange. The concept is not new. I probably saw this done elsewhere and much better at that. The exercise drew me into the picture as I added dots among dots, filling in the space as the image emerged. I purposefully left the background blank and did not fill in the middle space with another color or hue of orange, as is often done to accomplish a better sense of completeness and realism in other works by master impressionists.