1977-78, from an antique land, part 4.
 

Late 1977, the Large Watercolors

In the early months of my work with these methods, I had used paper maybe 20 x 18 inches,
then gone on to 30 x 22.  One day I read a review of new watercolors by Nathan Oliveira—
they were large (I don’t know how large)—and the reviewer praised their size. 

I thought if he can do it so can I, made a 4 x 6 foot drawing board/table top,
bought a roll of watercolor paper and began to paint at only 60 x 40 inches. 
These paintings from late 1977 were the result.

Ikarion II is an example of my first way of working in this large size.  My technique was a combination of transparent watercolor and gouache. Because I was finding the image in the process of painting it, the gouache, especially the silver, became quite thick and tended to crack and flake..  I made two paintings with this technique. Both were sold to collectors in Washington DC.  I have Ikarion II because the collector objected to the flakes of paint he found at the bottom of the frame.

Ikarion #s1, 3, 4, 5 was a being I met in the clouds.  Black Redmon, #7, was a being who lives in my dark gut.  Ikarion is sky, Black Redmon is blood and steel and lust.  I am Gemini, I am both.  #2, Self-portrait as Sea-Man, is me as all the signs of the zodiac.  When I showed the painting to a friend, and told him the title, he noted that Sea-Man could be a pun on semen.  I brushed his remark aside--but thought, "Yea, that's me."

After #2, Self-Portrait as Sea-Man, I developed a more linear technique, based in many ways on my late 1969 Rainbow Bridge series.  However, I began to want a colored background.  Remembering the pastel work of the early 1970's Dust of Paradise Harvest, I made a ground of soft pastel, fixed it and then worked the lines of the Rainbow Bridge, finding in  their tangle all the symbols and beings of my work with the Monroe System Focus 12.

CONTINUE