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the dandenongs, victoria, Australia
an artist and it solution architect living in the temperate rainforest of southeastern australia

Monday, January 11, 2010

"New Season" heads to Shanghai!!!


This painting ("New Season") made the initial cut for the Zhujiajiao watercolour show at Expo 2010 in Shanghai! This is so exciting for me! (i.e. i just had to share the news). No guarantee of making the final cut - but to get this far makes me both proud and humble!

8 comments:

David Burge said...

Very nice work Joel.
Looking forward to more along these lines.
Hope you're managing to keep cool.

Fernando Pena said...

wonderful light

joel said...

thanks Dake! i will try more along these lines - hopefully incorporating some of your immediacy, speed and bravura. it is very cool here now. i know you are in for a long, hot one over there.

fernando! yeah. the light is the main redeeming feature in this i think. i don't think it has any other great claims. but i will incorprate lessons learnt here as we progress...

Nick said...

That really looks like a couple of rainclouds pouring down a few miles away -- intentional, or did it just happen? I hope I see this one IRL soon!

joel said...

hi Nick! it is absolutely intentional. and i did it for several reasons.

(1) i still like painting stuff that portrays scenes that people relate to. it still amazes me that i can control the paint and water to make something look real enough to be understood. that novelty has not worn off.

(2) seeing rain from a distance, over a plain, it looks totally different. it still has the life-giving properties - but it looks less significant than when it is falling on top of a person.

(3) getting this effect with watercolors is very, very difficult and took many attempts. i used a pair of pigments that are natural complements and tend to separate in high concentration. that is cerulean and vermillion. they also make a killer grey. if you add a lot of water and are really patient yoo get the distand rain effect. so it is 100% intentional and a hard-won victory.

(4) this rain effect is a sign of hope in the australian rural landscape. hope of a "new season" and a new crop. it was a springtime painting and much influenced by the drought conditions in australia.

so, that is the story. maybe more than you wanted to know!

Nancy Lee Galloway said...

This is beautiful, Joel! I think it has a 3 dimensional quality particularly the sky - I can't stop looking at it! Congratulations on making the first cut.

wayne said...

Joel,
Beautiful handling of the sky in particular. Those small patches of light around the edges of the ?cumulo-nimbus are beautiful and the way you've allowed the water to float the colours downward and dry slowly, really gives a powerful sense of atmospheric depth and water vapour... congrats, and best wishes,
Wayne

joel said...

Nancy. Thanks. This piece was done during several weeks when i was playing with pigments that separate naturally in water. the effect of the rain shower (which i wokred hard to get) was hit and miss and the temp and humidity in the room need to be perfect - but that is where the quality of the 3B comes from i think.

Wayne. Thanks. watercolor can do amazing and unique things. floating the grays down the paper and exposing the whites of the paper at the same time was quite a trick. i could do it a million times and NEVER get the same result. then again if i had an infinite number of monkeys...

:)