No. 287: "Ripples"

No. 287, "Ripples" by Tom Wills, April 2015. Watercolor.

 No. 287, "Ripples," started simply, on several levels.
First, my cousin Pam's boys kept still enough for her to take a picture.
They were visiting their grandparents recently in Florida and had an occasion to throw something -- a pebble? A lucky penny? -- into a pond. The water rippled from the impact and Pam snapped a photo.
 

We can't know what the brothers Keifer and Kenny were thinking at that moment.
It could have been something as mundane as tossing a nugget into the water to scare the fish.
I doubt they were thinking about what a fascinating line of parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins that they're a part of.
They have plenty of time to reflect on that.

Pam checks out the finished painting, still drying!

She wanted a rustic frame. This one is extra knotty.

The composition of the photo is a second reason why this came together easily. A mutual friend immediately suggested that I paint it.
There was no editing of the image needed, other than eliminating the reflected tree line. I just thought the boys, the shore and the water made a much simpler statement -- and a bigger splash.
I started with a simple illustration:

 I next added a light wash of watercolors.  I mixed the colors in a series of Dixie cups.

The third reason why this painting came together -- in just four days -- is because I was on vacation, and it rained a lot, and my yard was too muddy for much activity.
So I stayed up late, played old jazz records and painted.
It's my time.

There appear to be ripples on my face ...

I did the boys first, and experimented with laying in the grass and clouds -- and pond scum -- around them.  This helped me to get a feel for how to mimic the natural coloring.

Brothers at the image center were done first.

The grass and clouds came next. I worked the top, then the bottom, and then the sides before filling in the middle.

Grass begins to "grow."

I added the ripple after the grass was laid in. 

Once the whole thing was dry enough, I washed over the water with a thin coat of white, and the grass with a thin coat of tan. This muted the colors, which were far brighter than the original. Toning down the colors gave the painting less of a cartoon-ish feel.

The ripple and the grass before their white wash.

This painting is a gift to the boys, so that they may remember this fun time in their lives, when everything is open to exploration and adventure. 

For in another time, this could be me with my brother. We threw a lot of rocks into a lot of ponds, too.

And we came from the same fascinating line of parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins.