Painting with Water . . . . “don’t be afraid, be curious”

To paint with water is to go swimming out beyond the breakers. If you let yourself drift for a moment in the line between sky and sea,  if you let your body become long like a fin and your eyes go wide and light with clouds, if you completely let go you can be sure that in the next moment the current will shift and the waves will crash upon your fragile ribs and spin you into not knowing.

Painting with water is just one big risk of drowning.

To remain curious while going under takes a greater leap of faith than I am accustomed to. Working small however— wading — takes no courage or faith at all. It’s just a place to be, a tide pool. If you are tiny and the world is tiny and you are eye to eye with the barnacles on the edge of the deep blue shell this is simply happiness and why argue?

Here are three little Water Babies, eight by eight inches, that seem to have survived the surf. I am learning how to paint with acrylic ink, and I am mesmerized. It’s like you can make your own weather wherever you go.

Water media paintings on panel © Iskra Fine Art 2016