What is with me and my water color?

Having pulled a sciatic nerve on the left side, I was grounded by my Doctor for three weeks. Not knowing what to do as I sat brooding over at home nursing my aching knees and nerves, I hit upon the idea of trying my hand at water color painting, for which I have recently developed a taste!

Last year, towards August or September, while tidying up some cluttered books and documents, I discovered a whole pad of water color papers fresh and unused under the pile! It set the ball rolling!

I used to paint oils on canvass, but my inspiration to paint used to come once in five years or so! Since 1983, I have been painting in bundles and knots like miracles in the Bible, once in five years, sometimes even longer! The last I painted was in 2009 or 2010. The next inspiration was to have occurred in 2015, there it is right on target!

I did two water colors and when some active members in my local Metropolitan club wanted to hold a talent show of the inmates (not that my colony is anything like a prison!), I presented these in the exhibition. The exhibition was called the “Talking Walls!”

The one on the left is a still life, painting of a vase with flowers from my home. The one on the right is a hibiscus flower that blossomed in my terrace garden! 

Though my friends and colleagues appreciated my efforts greatly, the art critic who had come to view the exhibits and conduct a demo for us was not greatly pleased. He said that water color has to be transparent and not so opaque! I realized that I have painted water color on paper like oil on canvas!

Crest-fallen, I returned from the battle-field. Determination grew inside of me to master the art of water color and improve my performance. I trouped into the library of my club and picked up two books on ‘how to paint water colors’ and ‘water colors for the beginners’ and started to read and even take notes!

Presto! Time has now come to put on paper what I have read. Famously I took the most brightest and beautiful of the pictures I had captured on my camera during my visits and tried my luck. It was a flaming tree with its leaves all blaze in bright orange hue in its fall splendor in the month of September, near my son’s house in Michigan, USA. Very ambitious, one might say. Hesitantly I uploaded that on my face book account.

Face Book being what it is, my friends and relatives, wanting to appreciate my efforts, sent many ‘likes!’ But there was one friend among them who is good at water color. She remained discreetly quiet! I knew then I had repeated the folly of painting water color like oil.

Not to be put down or give up, I tried my hand at another painting. Practice makes one perfect, they say. Don’t they? This time it was an area of beautiful scenery, again captured by my camera, on the way to Yellow Stone National Park, Wyoming, which I visited in 2011 along with my son.

As a test case, I showed it to my friend. She appreciated it genuinely. When I was squirming in the park bench where we sat, she grandly said, ‘you never know, after your time, this may be discovered as a master piece and people might pay tributes, like it happened with all the other famous painters in the world.’ Very wickedly she also said, ‘of course, you may not be living at that time to receive the honor or the money!’  

Well, this painting is definitely an improvement over the other three water colors, I would venture to say. Or is it? Well, I am uploading it in this blog for your scrutiny and your very valued comments! Don’t just send me your ‘likes,’ but say something, say anything, that it is beautiful or that it is not!

I am hoping that my water color expert friend will take note!