Watercolor Painting and Complexity
Posted by: Jim in Painting Technique on Aug 06, 2008
For an audience to believe that you have created a forever painting you have to build in complexity. This is somehting that was, not only known, but widely utilized in past centuries. When painting was a primary mode of entertainment it was imperative that the artist build in levels and depths of meaning in order to have a painting stand up to the scrutiny of repeated viewings. If the viewers always felt that there were more hidden meanings than could be comprehended in an intial viewing, they would be drawn back to the piece again and again. Today we seem to have lost the ability and desire to build such complexity into our watercolor paintings. While design and color can contribute to feeling and meaning they do not allow the viewere to continually explore and find new and different meanings hidden within the framed work. They are significance is primarily emotional. We need to begin once more to explore this idea of complexity as a part of the design process in order to create more memorable works.
