"Paintings With Personality"

This man was in a restaurant in Columbia, CA. He was sitting at a table with friends, each one of them more sketchable than the other. I used non-permanent ink and applied water to it later.

I’m dealing with a lousy cold, and feel like a toad. I promise that tidbit is the last of my prose for today. My vocabulary seems to have been reduced to moaning and groaning so, I will keep this post short and sweet. Otherwise, you might hear me moan in print.

I recently read in “The Art of Watercolor” an article about Naomi Tydeman, and written by Laurent Benoist. Naoim said, “It’s a strange thing that watercolour (I use the British spelling) has always had a lesser value than oils despite the fact that we’ve been using it for 40,000 years. The RI (Royal Institute), has referred to it as merely ‘drawing’ and dismissed it as a valid art form.” She continues “Yet everyone knows it is more difficult and requires so much more dedication and talent. Schools rarely teach it, art colleges rarely refer to it and yet every single little community art society uses it. People retire and take up watercolours. They take them on holiday. They travel with them. They are so very popular and yet still snubbed by the Establishment.”

After the 40,000 years, mentioned above, I think watercolor is here to stay, but can’t figure out why it doesn’t get the recognition of an oil painting.  It seems that something that old would be mentioned in art history books, but it isn’t. I have been thinking about the subject for quite a while. A friend and I were discussing it just the other day.

I’m sure there are more than a few answers to the conundrum, I have been able to come up with seven, maybe you can think of others.

1. In spite of it being more difficult than painting with oils, many people think of watercolor as a medium for hobby painters or Victorian ladies.
2. For years, many artists used watercolor as thumbnails for their oil paintings. As a result, it is considered a medium used for more insignificant art.
3. Art museums don’t often display watercolor, because it is light-sensitive and care must be taken to exhibit them without damaging the colors. The Metropolitan in New York keeps their Sargent watercolors in a dark case on one of the mezzanines.
4. Watercolor is identified with things other than fine art, such as children’s books, bird identification books, and various manuals.
5. Owners can get up close and personal with their oil paintings, even touch them if they want. Not so with watercolors which need to be protected under glass.
6. Watercolor is done on paper which can be damaged. Oil painters use longer lasting and expensive surfaces.
7. Water based paints, like watercolor, can be manipulated after they are dry. Although, there are mediums that can be applied to watercolor paintings that protects them without glass. Oil paintings don’t have to be under glass at all.

From the list above you would think I don’t like watercolor, but I love it. In fact, watercolor is my primary medium. It seems that all art, no matter what medium should be accepted equally. Hmmmm, is that prejudice? What do you think?  Later, Judy

http://judyballance.com/

Watercolor is a medium that can be as demanding and temperamental as those who choose to paint with it. But it is a colorful and exciting medium all the same – well suited to describing the many moods of the subject, as well as those of the artist wielding the brush. (Jean Burman)