Modern watercolor and me

At the end of my life as a medical professional I started painting just before the Corona lockdowns. These isolated years gave me the opportunity to figure out watercolor on my own, in all freedom and joy, without the do's and don't's that normally come with formal training. Having not learned about restrictions, I can now paint with watercolor on very diverse surfaces, like panels, mineral paper, even plexiglass and ostrich shells.  

The fact that watercolor is a quite unforgiving medium adds to the magic. Watercolor is only for the brave.      I prefer to make my own panels. Tweaking the many layers ( 5-8) I put on the panels I can finetune the surface to my needs and make them ready to last a lifetime.

I am totally mesmerized by watercolor, except for the fact that the work on watercolor paper has to be framed behind glass, which deadens the experience for me. Watercolor on panels and mineral paper doesn't have that restriction, it can be framed without glass. Because of this, it almost has the same feel as acrylics and oils.

Using a slightly different top quality transparent watercolor paint, with a different binder, and an archival finish makes the work archival , UV protected and time proof.

I am a portrait artist. Didn't mean to be, I started with portraiture as it seemed to me to be a fast track to mastering all the technical aspects of painting. Once started it turned out to be very addictive and endlessly fascinating. But then, I had seen so many faces in all different emotions in my working life, so many ideas. 

 I use self-portraits a lot. There is magic in the interaction between muse and painter, especially when the both are the same. Selfportraiture is my reaction to the toxic selfie culture where only the socially desired is accepted. I paint them brutally honest. It not being meant to please, not even myself, they can get a haunting lonely feel.

My work is about aging, the compassion it needs, about  letting go, about the unseen pandemic of long covid. And a lot more.  

My great inspirators are the artists Andrew Wyeth and Ali Cavanaugh.

If painting is literature, watercolor is poetry.

Btw, not written by AI.