Tomato, Pepper and Sage watercolor/gouache 10 x 10
Transparency and opacity, and their relationship, plagued me for years. Watercolor paintings without some opacity seem to bother me, as well as did oil paintings without the slightest notion of transparency. Upsetting the boundaries and limitations set forth by individual mediums is important to me. Yesterday, my husband and I visited the opening of The Butler Institute of American Art Midyear Exhibition opening. The works that stimulate me the most are those that seem to transcend the limitations of the medium, or seem to merge various mediums. In approaching, I am trying to decipher the medium, but am puzzled. I love that! I recently unearthed an older painting "Tomato, Pepper and Sage". I am more pleased by it now than I was at the time. I can recall the need to make the sage opaque, both the color and the texture. I felt that it simply couldn't be done any other way. So I added body color in the form of gouache. Ahhhh.....cooking without a recipe.
