The Color of Water

[caption id="attachment_1525" align="alignnone" width="500" caption=""Tearing Vines" Ann Rea ©, 30"x40", charcoal on canvas, To Kalon Vineyard, Napa Valley"]likeWater3[/caption] This partial shot of “Tearing Vines” was snapped where it sits now, laying flat on a drying rack while the very thick layers of oil paint dry. I was struck by its watery quality from this perspective.  And I was reminded of a comment made by a talented interior designer. “Your paintings have a fluid, watery quality.” I thought, why is that?  A watery quality is not something I have deliberately or even unconsciously imbued in my work. But I’m ever conscious and influenced by the sight of water.  I literally stare over the largest expanse of it every day. My private live work studio overlooks the Pacific. It’s an ever-changing cycle of color from a completely colorless form.  Like a mood ring, I watch it change with temperature and the cycles of the sun and the moon. But why else would my right brain create watery images?  Emotion.  That’s why. Straight, angular lines, flat plains of color, communicate less emotion.  An Edward Hopper painting demonstrates this. Fluid lines with gradations of color say, "I’m feeling it, I’m feeling you." It may look like I’m painting a vineyard or an aspen grove in the snow but it’s all coming from my emotional register. That’s what shapes the line, guides the brush stroke, and makes me move.  It’s the energy, the fire, that keeps me up past midnight sketching in charcoals, covering my hands in black dusk, messing up the last manicure and not caring. I love watching the Pacific Ocean colored by the sky and the sun its reflecting. And I love shaping color.  Its formed from the fire I feel inside.  Color that comes from emotions that I may never find the words for but that I will only ever express in paint.
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