Went out to try and do some watercolors today, but I ran into some problems when my watercolors started to freeze on me.  It's too bad because I had really wanted to paint the scene before me.  Regardless, the beauty of plein air painting is that each painting is more than a painting, each painting is a memory.  I can't wait for spring to arrive.

  I just finished up making my holiday cards for this year and I want to talk about using a material I haven't tried before.  The material is wax resist sticks made by Grumbacher.  I have wondered about wax resist for a while because I know Sargent used it, but I am just trying it for the first time today!  I have to say that I loved it and I'll be using it for my future watercolors.  The best part is that you can use them while the watercolor is still wet to create highlights.  Since I was painting snow scenes for my holiday cards, this came in extremely handy.

  I've recently been painting a lot of watercolors and one of the many things it has taught me is that it is very difficult to paint watercolors.  I was long under the spell of how easy some artists make it look (particularly Sargent and Sorolla).  But the truth that I'm discovering is that painting and drawing requires tremendous effort.  By the end of a painting my palette (and mind) is usually a chaotic mess as I have pushed paint around to get everything juuuuuust right.
  Now the problem is that I don't want my paintings to look overworked and tortured, but I've learned that I need to keep pushing and pushing until the painting looks as good as I expect it to.  I was looking for something to paint today and decided to step up my game and see if I could paint two liquor bottles on this red table cloth that I've been liking recently.  One of the bottles is a round glass with a golden sort of cage around it and the other is a bottle of Jack Daniels Honey Whiskey (my favorite drink on the rocks).  I've been painting a lot of these liquor bottles recently because I find the play of color and reflections to be quite fascinating and challenging.
  The painting required a lot of pushing until I finally got it to a level where it almost painted itself.  I think of it like pushing a car up a hill until you reach an apex and then the hardest part is done and you can guide the car back down the other side of the hill.  The downslope is usually enjoyable, but the pushing can be hellish at times.  
  Painting, to me, is like alchemy or magic because I'm trying to turn one substance (the paint) into other substances (bottles, whiskey, shadows, reflections) using only some brushes and medium.  On a deeper level, I'm trying to tell a story and have some emotionality in my work.  All of this is under my control based on my skill level.  The thing that I also realized is that the difficulty is what fascinates me.  I've always loved fixing things and solving problems and I see no greater challenge than creating an accurate visual chronicle of my reality on white paper with some paint and a brush.

  Nothing can replace practice and sweat.  I'm realizing that more and more lately.  It's not easy and there's no shortcuts.  Always working from life and trying my best.