Architectural Watercolors

My annual extended journeys to Europe began in 1978 with the purpose of augmenting my knowledge of architectural history that during my university training had consisted exclusively of the study of modernist antecedents.

At first I settled in Northern Europe where I produced detailed, on-site watercolors from French Romanesque and Gothic cathedrals.  But my upbringing in rural Indiana made me more comfortable working among country villagers and their simple, rustic homes rather than studying the better known, more studied architectural monuments. And so, I shifted my interest to the simpler architecture found in the villages of farmers and fishermen living in the lands bordering the Mediterranean Sea. My painting and photographic style and subject were fixed by the early 1980s, combining my deep interest in vernacular architecture with my passion for color.

During my early travels in Europe I developed a personal dry-brush watercolor technique that allowed me to paint continuously without waiting for washes to dry.  I first prepared a very accurate, detailed pencil drawing on heavy watercolor paper.  I then filled in each separate area defined by the pencil lines, over-painting from light to dark and blotting for texture while keeping the washes separated by the unpainted pencil lines. I determined what was unnecessary or distracting and left these areas unpainted.  Then I would finish the painting by erasing the pencil lines and washing over larger areas if needed.

When in my California studio, I depended upon photographs taken on my travels to produce large-scale paintings. As my technique developed, my highly detailed studio watercolors required more and more time to complete, often a month or more each.  By the early 1990’s, I found myself exhausted by the time I needed to produce enough work for my annual one-man shows.  Combined with the increasing demand for photographic exhibitions, I pulled away from painting and concentrated most of my energies on photography and the anthropological study of the history of vernacular architecture and color.  But I continue to return to painting regularly, its sympathetic vision and unexpected results pushing my photography in new directions as one media informs and drives the other.