Why Not?

Two years ago, I was attending a Watercolor of Oregon Critique group monthly. There were a lot of good painters in the group and it was always an education to sit and watch and listen to the commentary of each painting. By that time, I had started to move away from pure watercolor but still considered myself a "Watercolorist" at heart.

If I were asked to pinpoint my tangent from pure Watercolor, I would have to say it came during my first class on my first day at Art and Soul 2004. Mixed Media was for me. I'm straying here....Back to the subject at hand.

I had been feeling somewhat dissatisfied with the commentary I had been receiving on the pieces I brought in. The pieces were more loose and somewhat more abstract than those of the artists around me and it seemed to me that they did not know what to say about them. Abstract is definitely harder to critique. Thankfully, for me, we had a member who was a successful, award-winning painter. He was a very thoughtful and kind critquer and always respectfully waited till everyone else had their say and then he would tell us what he thought. This artist was Gene Gill. http://genegill.com/ During my last critique with the group, Gene did just that with my paintings. He looked at me and simply asked, "Why are you wasting your time? Why don't you just go totally into abstract?"

Good question. Why not? I truly appreciated his advice and that week I called my artist friend, Ruth Armitage, http://www.rutharmitage.com/ and asked her who I might take some classes from. It's odd, but I knew the answer to this question without even asking but it just hadn't come to me yet. She suggested Pat San Soucie. Pat is a wonderful lady and also very talented. She is nationally known for her interesting, textured, creative abstract paintings using pours. http://patsansoucie.com/ During the next 6 months my friend, Sandy Kay and I, met at Pat's home and learned how to pour abstracts. This playing laid the foundation for a new way of painting for me. I spent over a year playing with it and I am thinking about working this way again soon.

I have posted above several painting done during my study with Pat. My paintings don't look at all like hers. I think I took what she taught me techniquewise and made it my own. Thank you Gene for setting me on a new course and thank you Ruth for knowing the right answer to my request for a class. My heartfelt thank you goes to Pat! Thanks for your generosity! I learned a lot from you!