One Rainy Hilo Day

Aftershock
10 x 14
Mixed Media

So what do you do when the rain won't stop, the humidity is high, and you are a watercolorist who feels the creative urge?

This is what happened yesterday. When the humidity is super high here, even 140 lb. paper is limp like a piece of fabric. If you paint, your painting stays damp for hours, or days. I can easily imagine mold growing on it. Wet into wet--forget about it!

So I spent a little time feeling super frustrated, then I went into my materials and grabbed some rice paper I'd painted for collage work, my pen and inks and gouache paints. Then I looked over my stack of failed paintings and chose one I felt I could only improve on and went to work.

I did like the horizontal lines of the painting, but the colors had gone all wrong. I started with my collage work, covering the foreground, creating texture. Then I took my pen and ink and responded to the horizon, more of the same with gouache. As the bottom part of the painting took shape, I realized I needed a dark sky, so painted that.

I felt so much better. Did I create great art? I don't know, but I did experience the joy the creative process brings.