Introduction to Watercolors

It’s not often one gets to work with an award-winning artist. You worry if your game is good enough to do right by them. At the same time, it’s a bit of a rush.

I can’t remember where I read this, but the gist of it is watercolors demand perfection. Each brush stroke has to be spot on. You can try, but you can’t really blend it out.

Ann Salviazul is an amazing master of watercolors. I used her Hollyhocks as the anchor graphic. At first glace, I didn’t think it was a watercolor. It took me back to when I was little, running around Grandpa’s farm. There were these insanely tall (to a six-year-old) things with flowers on the top third. In the fall, they would dry up into these brittle bamboo-ish sticks that I would have pretend sword fights with. En garde!

The text only looks like it was simply placed there, but it took some doing to get the wrap around the inset to look just right. There’s no set formula, you have to eye it, and trust your judgment.

I didn’t have to include the inset, but it does offer another example of what you can do with watercolors. It also eliminates what would have been a simple (boring) division between image and text. Notice how the anchor, inset, and the Arts Center logo create a swath of color descending across the page. The color and the text both lead towards the Arts Center. Art ... Learning ... Kirksville Arts Center.