Birth and Death (One Afternoon I Contemplated the Universe)

The world is full of contradictions, you say goodbye and I say hello according to the Beatles. Red and green, white and black, hot and cold, winter and summer, day and night, tomato and tomaaaaato. Okay most of those were actually contradictions. Life and death are the ultimate contradictions but then life brings death and in some belief systems death brings life. I represented a common theme in First Nations People's art, the connection between life and the land, which is depicted in the lines connecting the animal representations and the landscape and the elements.

In the traditional English method one does not use white paint or black paint, instead the white is from the paper itself and black is created from mixing complements, in this case red and green as seen in the middle central area where the red and green overlap. In this example it is optical mixing, because the two layers (red and green) are completely pure, dry, and the light passing through these two layers mixes to create the near-black tone. In contrast one can mix the two colours on the palette, but with watercolour this usually produces a faded and flat look. Optically mixed paint layers are shinier and have a lot more 'bite'.

22 x 15 " cold press watercolour. (56 x 40 cm) 2003