While the fiddler drives, I like to paint. Problem is, the car is moving so fast through the landscape that all I capture are fleeting shapes and color. So rather than write a wordy blog post, dear reader, I give you some classic 5-7-5 haiku with my little sketches. Happy Tuesday afternoon!
Traveling, I paint
wet brown hills fading away
from town cloaked in trees.
The yellow grass, wet
but not yet green, dreams like birds
of El Niño rains.
Two rocks rear above
the road. Wet, the big rock’s head
bleeds to meet the rain
The last pass. Fly down
fast past a parked black-and-white.
Play invisible.
Dry furrows cross fields
newly plowed with hopes of rain
that falls on cities
How to paint a tree?
Edges, texture, size and form.
What’s seen disappears.
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Distant water 3.5″ x 2.5″ watercolor in Strathmore Mixed Media Journal
This week I had to make a sojourn to the Bay Area. The fiddler likes to drive, so while the fiddler steered the infernal combustion machine, I painted.
I love passenger-seat painting. Give me a wide enough view and a straight enough road (I suffer from motion sickness), and I can paint for miles.
In the studio, it’s easy to get in that zone of hyper-focus where thought takes a backseat to conscious action. If you’re a painter, you know what I mean. Pick up some color with the brush, dab it on—ooo pretty—dab some more—ooo pretty pretty—dab, dab, dab—pretty pretty pretty—dab, no, wait, dang it, arggh! What have I done? If you don’t pause and move back, pretty soon you’ve created a muddy mess.
Green Hill 3.5″ x 2.5″ watercolor in Strathmore Mixed Media Journal
Painting landscape studies in the car (while someone else is driving—duh!) is a good way to break that kind of zen-zoned out paint daubing. You can’t focus for very long on one scene, because the scene changes minute-by-minute. So you have to make your decisions rapidly and correctly.
Fallow field 3.5″ x 2.5″ watercolor in Strathmore Mixed Media Journal
All you have time to do in the car is decide on a quick composition, draw the big shapes, get the right color and value on the palette, and paint the shapes. I start with the sky first usually, the brightest and lightest shape. The jiggling of the car prohibits any attention to detail; it’s all about composition, color and shape.
I love these little watercolors. The challenge is to bring this freshness and life into larger studio paintings.
Winter trees 3″ x 6″ watercolor in Strathmore Mixed Media Journal
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Mockingbirds at midnight 