There is one spectacle grander than the sea, that is the sky; there is one spectacle grander than the sky, that is the interior of the soul.
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
Thought I’d share another older piece, one that also never found its way out of the studio. Some times the reason they stay with me is obvious and other times not so much. This small piece falls in the not so much category.
It’s from mid 1995, not long after I first started showing my work publicly. Across the bottom of the piece of watercolor paper on which it is painted is the title The Sky Is Always the Sky along with the date it was painted in 1995.
Looking at it now, I can’t figure out why I felt it wasn’t worthy to show at that time. I am actually pretty pleased to be able to show it now. It has much in it that I wish would show up in my work now, twenty five years later.
For example, its utter simplicity and the gracefulness of its linework. Well, my definition of gracefulness, anyway. There’s also the way the layers of color go together so well with the grainy pigments of the cobalt blue settling into the shallow pits of the paper above a sepia underlayer.
Looking at it, I realize that many of the changes that took place in the following years in my work were material related. A few years after this I went from employing traditional watercolors in my work to acrylic inks. The difference is that the inks have a more and finer pigments which make their colors more explosive, more impactful. There is a difference in the more subtle aspects of the watercolors that is hard to replicate with the inks. This piece is an example, at least by my analysis.
Another difference was that I also began using a gessoed surface a few years later which also brought dramatic changes to the work. The positives of using gesso outweigh not using it for me but the beauty of cotton watercolor paper and its tactile appearance is undeniable.
The other difference was that the brushes I was using at the time were wonderful Winsor & Newton round brushes that have long since been discontinued. These round brushes had a different brush profile than almost any other round brush I have been able to find since that time. I use a round brush almost all the time in my wet work even when a flat brush might sometimes be a more obvious choice. I like the organic quality it gives the work and the linework it produces. Brush choice has a big impact on how the work appears and I am still trying to find brushes that have the same qualities as those old W&N brushes.
Anyway, looking at this old piece again so closely gives me inspiration, makes me want to revisit those elements that make it work so well for me. We’ll see
Here’s an old Chris Isaak song, a favorite that is centered around a particular blue sky. It’s the tone I would like for this piece. Here’s Blue Spanish Sky.
Redtree Times 
Gary, when I first looked at this on my phone the textures didn’t come through… wow, once I opened it on the computer though! That color and texture is amazing.
Oh… and I can “almost” see the smoke on the horizon from the train…
” Brush choice has a big impact on how the work appears” — isn’t that just the truth? My favored brushes are from Elder & Jenks. They’re expensive — so much so the chandleries stopped stocking them — but thanks to the marvel of the internet, they’re easy enough to get.
I would think brush quality would be very important for what you do, Linda. There are certain parts for my work where it isn’t the quality or cost of the brushes but the shape of the brush head. The brushes that I first used were not the most expensive but they had a distinct shape that was unlike any other round brush I can find now, which all seem to be more pointed than round. I’ve tried cutting and shaping the brush heads but if you’ve ever tried this you know that it doesn’t often work out well. Like you said, the internet makes it possible to keep looking which is what I will do.