I love beauty and beautiful things. As the saying goes, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but for me flowers definitely fall into this category. So do so many different animals.- zebras with their stripes, giraffes with their own striking patterns and uniquely-shaped bodies, and curious young foxes with brilliant white and black markings contrasting with magnificently colored red fur. Of course, color and color combinations always touch me. The options are nearly endless! Architectural details and buildings, gardens, outdoor spaces, china patterns, tea cups, and so many other life offerings jump to mind as well when I consider things I find beautiful.
One of my photographs transformed into a watercolor representation: Dahlias and Ageratum - a bouquet I made from homegrown flowers when I was a flower farmer.
With phone cameras making it so easy to capture everything, including beauty, we can hold this all in the palm of a hand, and access it at any moment. This is a gift of sorts, but I have taken to moving a number of my photographs beyond direct representation to softer, gentler forms - watercolor forms. I have long wanted to create with watercolors. By long, I mean I took a class nearly fifty years ago. Nothing came of it. I never put in the time needed to learn, experiment, or create.
I believe, with no specific scientific information to back up my belief, that a person looking at a watercolor representation and a photographic representation might, perhaps, use different parts of their brain to see, filter, and experience what is being seen. I bet the scientific backup exists. A watercolor makes me pause. It pulls me out of myself and into the painting and makes me look more deeply. It seems to require a bit of input of imagination to fill in gaps. It is often not as clear a representation. It simultaneously filters back into me and touches my heart and emotions. Photographs can certainly be impactful, either due to subject matter, techniques used, or both, but they seem to make this impact differently.
Enter the digital age. It seems ironic that technology is what allows me to transform photographs to watercolor representations. I am playing with several programs. I will share more about this in the next few months. Stay tuned. In the meantime, enjoy the beauty around you, as well as the beauty within.