| The inherent difficulty of the watercolor medium once filled me with dread whenever I came face to face with a painfully white, virginal sheet of watercolor paper. I knew it was only a mass of interlocking organic fibers with some sizing added, but when I stepped up to start a painting, I could feel it mocking me, reminding me of the many times I had messed up an otherwise satisfactory piece of work with a momentary loss of focus and a too-impulsive pass of the brush. I once confessed to Murray Wentworth that I was always a bit nervous when facing a fresh sheet of watercolor paper - that I was aware of a disturbing sense of impotence when facing a fifteen dollar sheet of Fabriano with only brushes in hands that I felt should more properly be holding a whip, a chair, and a pistol. |
| Murray was an exceptional watercolor painter, about whom there is more in another section. I brag about owning some of his work, because I think there was genius in the man. He once provided some unusual assistance to me in overcoming my fear of…blankness? |
| Several years ago, I had the good fortune to study with Murray in Maine for a very short couple of weeks. One afternoon he was about to start his second painting demonstration of the day, and had just placed a fresh sheet of paper on his easel. He turned to us and said, "This is for Bob." With that, he dipped into a dirty water bucket, that hadn't been changed since the morning's demonstration, and from about five feet away, with a fully charged three-inch sable brush, backhanded a slash of dirty water toward the easel. I watched in horror as that fat ribbon of mud snaked its way across the intervening space, to splash cruelly across the face of that gleaming white paper. |
| When I regained consciousness, Murray was telling the group that the surface of a good watercolor paper isn't as delicate or fragile as we might think, that it can withstand considerable abuse. He then went on to wipe, scumble, and over paint his splattering, until, in the end, he had produced a remarkable painting of the scene in front of him - an old bridge with a tumbled granite block abutment at one end. It needed only some final tweaking in his studio to finish it off. There was no evidence of any desecration. |
| That all happened many years ago, and Murray's shock therapy went a long way to curing my phobia. Today, for me, the most enjoyable part of any painting has become the first hour or so, when color is applied vigorously and quickly, with almost reckless abandon. Now it’s the end game, the finishing of the painting, that sometimes gives me trouble. Unfortunately Murray isn’t around any more to help me out with that. |