Painting with a big brush and lots of paint

One month ago I began a challenge. I decided to add variety and competence in my watercolor landscapes by creating 100 watercolor skies and I called this my 100 watercolor sky challenge. I knew I needed some peer feedback and pressure to make the journey from beginning to end so I post each new painting on Facebook. Now, 30 sky paintings later I have come to appreciate that while I would no doubt build skill in handling skies in watercolor, I was also beginning to learn some things about myself, and me as an artist.

As I set down and looked through the 30 paintings I have created for this challenge thus far I am learning some things, some things that are important to me. Rain, storm clouds, and the hope of precipitation seem to be a recurring theme in my work. My childhood was spent surrounded by the need for moisture. Our crops, the grass our cattle and horses grazed upon all required the weather to bring moisture. I tend to paint the hope and anticipation for moisture more than I do actual rain or snow. I remember more storms that swung north, or slipped to the south and these emerge in my work as I capture moments where it isn't yet known whether the moisture will come or not.

30/100 of my Challenge

I also see how I like to work wet in to wet and then dry brush over washes. In today's piece, #30 shown above, I was fascinated by the subtle, veiled atmospheric effects of rain clouds over a distant mountain standing sentinel against the vast prairie. I used small bits of the paper to add sparkle to the distant peak, snow left stranded against the summer's heat, and again in the foreground to liven up the more dense pigment. I also discovered that I link people in my life to my paintings. I do this purposefully when I do one of my sunset memorial skies for a someone near to me that passes away, and through this journey of skies I find I do it subconsciously when I select subject matter and while I paint. I discovered this just yesterday evening as I set out to paint. I picked backlit cottonwoods along the Big Sandy Creek. The subject matter is about my Dad and the occasion was his birthday. I did not intend that to be the case, it just happened as I reflected after the painting was complete.

I wonder if focusing on someone in accidental, or a part of my method? What really goes on in our minds as we paint, and is it always the same? Do good paints arise when we are only in the frame of mind which works best for us? I have lots of questions now and 70 more paintings in this journey to better understand why I paint, what I paint, and how I paint. One thing is for certain and that is working in a series and pushing through can result in something as magical as watercolor pigment flowing on paper: an inner journey where we come to better appreciate the life we live with art.

Thank you for taking the journey with me, and I encourage those of you who paint to do a series, and for those who don't paint but really appreciate art perhaps collect in a series. I think the results will be the same, a deeper appreciation and understanding for those things we most love in this world.

JR Monks

p.s.  go to my website and look at the new work and then either find me on Facebook-J.r. Monks, or email me through my website, jrmonks.com,  and drop me a line to let me know what subject speaks most to you