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| Kitchen Corner, Sonora 5 x 8-1/2 inches, watercolor on paper, NFS |
..... and drawing, and scrolling through old photos on the computer, and anything I can do sitting in front of the feeble output of the space heater. The door to
The dreaded season is upon us. For me, the winter holidays are always a time to be endured. But even they pale in comparison to the cold. Here, at 5000 feet elevation, it begins in November, and lasts through mid-February. Outdoors it's fine, you can walk around in a light jacket; it's the houses that are cold. Mexican houses are of masonry construction, and leak like sieves. Most are dark and gloomy, especially in downstairs rooms. A day in which the temperature gets over 66 F inside is a Good Day around here in winter.
The closed door to my workroom reproaches me. (And it must be horrible Feng Shui. I worry about these things.) But I can no longer manage to stand for hours in a 62-degree room with a wet paper towel in my hand.
And so I do watercolors. I've played with them for years, but the last few winters they've become an annual ritual. My watercolors are crude and amateurish, but I love them. They save me from despair while fighting hypothermia three months of the year.
Because it's winter and I'm holed up in the house hibernating, I often paint my immediate surroundings from life in watercolor, which gives them an intimate, diary-like quality. Subjects I've never had much luck with in oil or acrylic, like interiors, for some reason yield to watercolor.
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| My Kitchen Door, Sonora 8-1/2 x 5 inches, watercolor on paper, NFS |
I work in front of the computer, (and the heater). It's a bit crowded, what with the mouse, keyboard, water glasses and paints and all, but it's worth it because it's the only warm spot in the house.
I do my watercolors in the same sketch pads I use for drawing. I've remained loyal to Reeves's sets of 12 pan colors, which I first found at a Hobby Lobby in New Mexico. I tried some colors in tubes, and liked their richer colors, but found I'd become addicted to the convenience and portability of the cakes. (I always take watercolor gear on trips, although I don't always use it.) I've collected a few brushes for the cause.
For a while I thought I might sell them, and started using real watercolor paper, but it took all the fun out of it. I've given a couple to friends, but mostly I prefer to hoard them all for myself. They're a private, kind of guilty pleasure, a comfort and a consolation, a small spark of light in the endless gloom of the season.
