Higher Ground

Here is an abstract painting I did recently called Higher Ground. I was inspired by a chinese painting I bought years ago, it depicted a tree branch on the top of the picture, with a bird jumping off the branch. The bottom part of the chinese painting was completely blank paper, but when I first walked by the painting in the gallery I could have sworn that I saw a field of farms and a mountain in the background. When I came back to look at the painting for a second time it sunk in that the painting was actually blank on the bottom and the mountains I saw were an optical illusion, a product of my imagination. In the painting shown here, the entire top half of the painting is blank (except for the upper tree branches), but you could almost imagine that it is a cloudy sky, or that a bird is about to fly by.

Now I will explain how to paint a blank canvas...just kidding, you leave it blank. But seriously, it was important to make the edges of the other painting elements blend into the blankness. For example, there is a thin blue wash at the bottom of the painting, which I blended using a brush full of clean water. The trick is to use just the right amount of water to blend the edge of your wash....not enough and it looks too choppy, and too much the paint will continue to dissolve into your blend and dry with a hard edge. It's a matter of practice to get it right, once mastered the edge-blending is a powerful tool that allows you to create amazing effects and also fix mistakes. I should write a section on fixing mistakes soon! (the best advice with watercolour is: don't make mistakes).

Higher Ground, watercolour 10 x 11" cold press, spring 2008 (No. 1449)