"Feathers of Angel Wings"

(SOLD.....8" x 8".....Watercolor on 300 lb. CP Fabriano.......Presented on a 2" Cradled Board)

"The feathers of angel wings cover me with protection." Everyone likes the idea of being protected from the storms of life. The association of a feather image to angel wings rustles my imagination in a very good way.

Well.....this is the end of the angel series. It's time to move on. The position of these last set of wings came to me just before I woke up this morning. They are almost touching and seem to be enclosing an area....very much like a shelter. (Psalm 91 provides more connections with this thought.)

Of course the piece was created much the same way as the others so there's not too much to add to those comments. I guess my big take away from this particular design in conjunction with watercolor techniques was the idea of color bands and the surrounding shapes. In this case, I am referring to the stripes in the feathers, but it could also be bands of strong color with negative space in between. It might be fun to create a small piece with a wide range of different sized stripes. Paint the bands of color  in a fairly saturated manner with blank paper in between. After drying the bands throughly, take a brush dipped only in water and wet each band and the area in between and allow the pigment from the saturated color to bleed into the empty band shape. It will soften the edges of the darker color and break up some of the surface of an extremely saturated color.

Most of the time, watercolors are layered to create a darker area and in most cases that would be the preferred technique, but this also offers up some possibilities. Contemporary watercolor is a wonderful segue into experimentation and simply playing around with different ratios of pigment to water. Close observation of what happens when you apply the watercolor in various stages of wetness is also instructive. For instance....applying different ratios of pigment and water to totally wet paper....waiting until the glisten of the water leaves the paper, and "bone dry" paper.

These are some of the techniques that will prove to be useful when creating a piece. And there you have it...just a few more things to think about.

Please contact me personally to inquire about this piece.