An Ansel Adams study resulted in this watercolor painting of the sky.
From the collection of his work, I came away with realizing he took his camera to fix true grandiosity. Mostly mountains or deep woods or details within those fresh nature areas, his interpretation was for essence.
A generation later, I studied Zen through Calligraphy.
The brush used in this swift watercolor is the traditional Chinese Hake brush about 3″ wide on a 7″ x 10″ Aquarelle Arches cold pressed, 140 lb paper. The brush was the unlikely choice being so wide on such a small area. This forced me to paint swiftly, focusing inwardly on the movement of the air in the clouds.
Yarka Russian watercolors were my choice and the brush, yet again, was a seeming ill fit for the small tubs in my set…..I purposely sloshed blue tubs around and let the brush pick up the variety of blues I set into one place. Mostly prussian based blues with that twinge of green and the ultramarine blues together swept across the page.
For me, it was a departure from my normal watercolor studies. This was the first pure essence piece. This was my first purely zen reaction to the clouds in my Floridian sky.