Nov 2, 2010

Santa’s coming

“Steve and Ivie’s house”
7x10" watercolor

Ho de doe ho! Santa’s around the bend!
So, I’m not a poet, or a songwriter. But Santa really is just around the corner.

It would have been hard for me to leave the lovely Inn on Oak Street had I not been returning to quaintly beautiful Beaufort [SC]. My hosts Jerry and Ray had extended their gracious invitation to include the following weekend. And besides, Jerry was interested in commissioning me to paint her daughter’s house. And so here you are folks, Ivie and Steve’s lovely home in Habersham, an upscale development in Beaufort.

Notice the white trim. Normally, my calligraphic watercolor style does not lend itself to this kind of white crispness. I decided the trim, however, was so much a part of the character of the house that it needed to be depicted. To accomplish this, I did a base coat of watercolor that was a combination of wet and dry. Dry in the areas where I wanted to maintain my whites; wet in the areas where I wanted the colors to meld together. I feel good about the result. The next posting will include a painting in which I used this same approach. I may be onto something. With a major show of my calligraphic watercolors coming up next year at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, this breakthrough did not arrive too soon.

So you ask, where did Santa hop off his sled? The painting of Ivie’s house is a gift from her mom. Smart mom, she checked first to see if her daughter would be good with one of my paintings. Glad she is. Jerry’s candidness with her daughter also explains why this painting is not still under wraps.

1 comment:

  1. just love it! can't wait to get it signed and on the wall.

    ReplyDelete