Blacks are my Favorite Colors

So – Watercolor.

I was painting the other day, trying some things, came to re-realize – I really like black.

This should be obvious. But you don’t always think about your own paintings. They just happen sometimes.

I was trying to paint some florals from our photos of the botanical garden, as the real thing is closed for quarantine.

Pretty much convinced – I can’t paint florals! OMG. I was hating all of them. Really frustrated with bright, sunlit, subtle colors.

Until this one with the dark water.

This is what I like. Hard edged contrasts, dark backgrounds, and aggressive, direct, paint handling.

I have five blacks in my 21 color travel palette.

Indigo, Neutral Tint, Perylene Green, Bloodstone Genuine, Lunar Black.

That’s a lot of shades of black.

I have very few transparent colors. It’s almost impossible to be subtle with this palette. It’s kind of a blunt instrument. Made for drama, not for subtlety.

I’m not sure if this is good or bad. I’m actually fairly sure, it’s not what anyone else wants.

But this is what my eyeballs liked today.

And that’s kind of what it comes down to in art. You have to serve yourself. Your own vision. Art is inherently difficult, time consuming, expensive, and at the end of the day, for most of us the lion’s share of the reward has to come from inside.

~m