A little watercolor madness

I had intended to start a drawing today, but the watercolors were calling my name. And since the kids were happily playing in the sprinkler in the back yard, I just sat at the kitchen table and kept painting! 

The great thing about watercolor is that it forces me to be intentional and direct. It seems like I read in a book somewhere (maybe Harold Speed's book on oil painting?) that watercolor is a master's medium, and the student shouldn't touch it. I can see where the author was coming from--it's a one touch and you're done kind of thing, so it can be really tough and you're sure to churn out a lot of flops along the way. But at the same time, I think it is a good way of learning to be less detail oriented and allow yourself some space to just play. There's something very organic about the way the colors flow from the brush to the page too, and I like that. I used to always draw the outline in pencil first and color it in later, but I don't do that anymore. I just like to go at it with the brush, and if it's messy, it's messy. 

Anyway, this was a good little exercise for loosening up and breaking out of thinking too small. I think that's something I struggle with in oil painting--the medium allows you to take as long as you want and be as detailed as you want, and not that I want to be too detailed, but I can get a little lost in the little things and lose sense of the abstraction. And it seems to me that abstraction is where the secret to seeing things as they really are lies (simplify, simplify, simplify!).