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Ever since I set up a home studio, I've done more watercolors than oil paintings. Many reasons are:

One. I want to reacquaint myself with painting watercolors and take advantage of having a home studio in order to paint more deliberately. Allow washes to dry before moving on the the next wash or detail work.

Two. The home studio is also a home gym and, because of COVID-19 teleworking reality, also my home office. Since watercolor does not require laborious brush cleaning, it's easy and agreeable to put in ten or fifteen minutes after hopping off the elliptical trainer before heading into breakfast. It takes at least ten minutes just to clean up after painting with oils.

Three. Oil painting leaves a solvent and paint smell. Since my art space is now also my day job work space for who knows how long, I wasn't sure that I'd want to breathe those fumes all day long.  Certainly not on a daily basis.

Four. Who knows? Sometimes you feel like a nut. Sometimes you don't.

Not much progress yet in my vision of watercolor improvement. Sure, I am taking small steps, and letting things dry completely before moving on to the next stage.  I am making deliberate efforts to pursue the light, translucent glow of the best watercolors instead of slapping more and more darks in just because I have always tended towards contrast and bright colors in my efforts to reach the mythical "it's done!" (as I've said before, using stolen words, work on paintings may eventually stop, but they are never really completed; more like abandoned). The thing is, I'm not necessarily seeing improvement yet. 

In the Snowbird Mountain painting above I painted each mountain range one at a time, deliberately attempting keep the washes light and airy. It's okay, I guess, but in paintings of similar mountains done years ago, there is an energy in the work not apparent here. I attribute this to the wet on wet mischief watercolor is infamous for. Sometimes fast and loose just works, but there's always a certain amount of you just have to get lucky involved as well.

Now, take a look at Vineyard in Winter:

This was also done slowly and deliberately. I am personally quite tickled by this one. Much more so than I am with the Snowbird Mountains, and I cannot for the life of me tell you why. Maybe working at home has just made me shack-wacky. And who knows, your preferences may be the opposite of mine, or you might not care strongly for either.

In any event, it's been a while since I blogged, and wanted to check in. Nice talking to you!