I paint or draw because there are so many interesting and beautiful things in the world and painting is my way of responding to beautiful things. I prefer working directly from subjects whether it is nature or a person. For instance, if I am drawing or painting irises in my garden, I like to express the feeling of sun on my back and the breeze blowing on my face. All that becomes part of the painting. It my subject is a person, I prefer working with live models so I can express life in that moment.
Painting is an adventure. The thrill starts when the watercolor begins to flow onto the paper. The beauty and excitement can take my breath away. It is so much an intuitive process. I try to cover the whole paining before I make any corrections. I don’t want to get bogged down early. Then the fine-tuning comes into play. I approach the painting using the discipline of my craft and develop the painting further. I call on everything I have learned to bring the final touches to my paintings. The delight comes when I am successful, but alas, there are times when I must let it go and start over.
There are those times when a painting transforms and develops a life of it’s own ending up quite differently than I anticipated. Art in my world is surprising and very entertaining.