A watercolor and pastel drawing I made this week for a project I’m working on.
I’ve had the same box of pastels for 15 years. The medium had fallen out of favor since it smudges so easily and the dust migrates all over the paper. I unearthed my old box after looking at a children’s book where the illustrator applied pastels on top of her watercolor paintings (I wish I could remember who the author was or the name of the book, but alas, it escapes me). Since I tend to overdo it with the watercolors, creating a sort of mud, the pastels really helped to bring out the color.
Mogs and I played with them on some of her construction paper. The color of the paper, mixed with the color of the pastels, was much more vibrant than I would have anticipated.
This painting has gone through many versions. At first I wanted the jug to be pouring out milk alluding to the Greek myth of how the milky way was created. One story described it as “a smear of milk left after the infant Hercules suckled milk from Hera to gain her wisdom. ” For this particular project, I decided that the unseen hand would represent the communities living near the heron’s habitat and their impact on the storm water runoff feeding these waters.
I like this piece. And I like the story behind it as well. Such thoughtful art!