Life's a blurrrrr

"Life's a Blurrrr..." 5 x 7 watercolor, 140 lb Fabriano Artistico extra white cold press paper

"Fast."
How to capture today's #WorldWatercolorMonth's daily prompt? 
We know what 'fast" is, but it's relative, as is "slow," as an adjective (food, cars), or as a creature (humans, cheetas), or as time--whatever that is. We all have different images.
The first that comes to my mind is the roadrunner, state bird of New Mexico, though we have them here  too. I always think seeing one is a good omen, and I've had some two-roadrunner kinds of days driving the back roads here in central Oklahoma.
I've painted them before, but this called for a different approach....

A taste of color

"The Taste of Color," 5 x 7 no-brush watercolor, 140 lb Fabriano Artistico extra white cold press paper

The more I read, the more I study, the more I paint, the less I know.
I finished rereading Austin Kleon's "Keep Going," (10 ways to stay creative in good times and bad) this week. Here is another book that chose me at the right time as his tips prod me to keep going in this pandemic of biologic, racists and tRump viruses sapping our spirits and mental health.
There are times when I need to be prodded into writing and especially painting, until I get under way and just play, experiment, try. 
So it was today with #WorldWatercolorMonth's daily prod of "Fruit." Other obligations consumed most of the day, and afternoons are not kind to me energy. 
But I'd had the day to stew on the subject, first thinking about trying a Cezanne technique.
Then I thought about even more impressionistic, not quiet pointillism, to get to the nature and light of delicious fruit.
So here you have another no-brush (all sponges), watercolor.

The colors of a season

"Western Candles," 5 x 7 watercolor, 140 lb Fabriano Artistico extra white cp

"Fall" was today's #WorldWatercolorMonth daily prompt, and the word immediately brings color to me.
To an Easterner and Midwesterner, it probably brings vision of the riot of multi-colored leaves of hardwoods changing as the days get shorter and cooler.
I love those, but as most Westerners, I'll bet the images that comes to mind are  either the lower elevation Cottonwoods, or the quaking high altitude Aspen, every shade of yellow and gold.
Both will "knock your eyes out" with gorgeous, luminous golds, especially against the contrasting, complementary intense blue Western skies.
So here's two paintings today.

Terrence Miller Clark, in the Aspens

Almost every Western artist has attempted painting the Aspen, including me--never to my satisfaction, and a photo of my Dad painting them in oils in Northern New Mexico long ago, hangs in front of me as I type this.
I wondered why we call it "fall," as a synonym for the more elegant word "autumn." Turns out that "autumn" was first used in English in the 1300s, but eventually "fall" came into use 300 years later as poets  used the phrase "the fall of the leaves."
It certainly applies. 
But today, on a whim, I tried again, using just sponges, with a minimum of brushwork. I think it's impossible to capture their real glory on paper, but this was something different, and I undoubtedly will try again.
And for the heck of it...a similar technique for those Eastern hardwoods.

"Hardwood Explosion," 5 x 7 watercolor, 140 lb Fabriano Artistico extra white cp

Free, with Walt

"Song of the Open Road," 5 x 7 watercolor, 140 lb Fabriano Artistico extra white cold press

"Free."
Paint that, from #WorldWatercolorMonth by Doodlewash, daily prompt.
Lots of choices, symbols and images come to mind for an abstract word.
Then I thought of favorite poet Walt Whitman and his "Song of the Open Road," and it so seemed to timely and fit for  being cooped up because the viruses of pandemic, racism and political chaos.
There's so much we can't safely, freely, do these days, and one of them is to hop in a car, and take a carefree trip across our country, without lots of planning and caution to avoid contagion, to stay healthy. 
Oh, to be free again to just pack the car, head any direction. The open road always beckons me, but now more than ever.
"Afoot and light-hearted I take tot he open road,
Healthy, free, the world before me, ...."
For now, I can take the open road of imagination with Walt.
So today's abstract painting of an abstract word.

A simple word full of energy

"Flow," 5 by 8 watercolor, 140 lb Fabriano Artistico extra white cold press paper

"Flow."
Such a simple word, but full of energy in many contexts.
How to paint it? It was the daily prompt for #WorldWatercolorMonth by Doodlewash.
My first thought was water, flowing down streams, and as I experimented, I realized my brush was flowing also.
Then I looked up the word, which I've used in the past in teaching writing...stories should "flow," meaning they're not choppy, but easily lead the reader along.
More examples "flowed" from the word. One called it the mental state in which a person is busy in an activity and fully immersed in it. (That also applies to painting and the creation of all art, I think, because the world goes away.
Other examples included steady progress on a research paper, even a class session where students are activity involved. There were even tips on how to get flow.
I stuck with the water image, thinking back to my canoeing days. Then when I painted this, determined to use all the blues on my palette, I realized it could also be a representation of a mountain range? Obviously, landscapes flow to.
Anyway, it's a little abstract, and minimalist, letting my imagination flow with the brush. I used six blues, letting the water flowing in them create flow: Cerulean blue, Cobalt blue, Peacock blue, Prussian blue, Royal blue, Turquoise blue and  Ultramarine blue.