"Velvet Petals" watercolor and ink painting by Atlanta artist Courtney Khail (7" x 10" painted area, paper size 11"x15")
I've had people asking for smaller works in addition to my normal large pieces, so these past few weeks I decided to play around with proportion and scale and do just that. And by play around I mean, I wanted to capture the same movement and compositions of my large paintings in a smaller size and wanted to see if I was capable of doing that in a way that I was proud of and wanted to share with you all. As it turns out, I actually really enjoyed the challenge and the works that developed from it.
This is the first painting of a series that will be released over the next few weeks and to be honest, it almost never made it past the watercolor stage. I started this piece with the clearest vision in my head of how I wanted it to look, but (as is normal) my hand and the paint had a different idea then my mind. No matter how hard I pushed and steered, it still ended up developing into something completely different then I originally planned.
Per the usual when that happens, I put it to the side- frustrated and annoyed with the disconnect between my head and my hand and unable to see the beauty that evolved despite my best efforts to contain it. Luckily, A few days passed (and my frustration lessened) and I decided just to "play around with ink." My thought was if it was already going to end up in the garbage, I might as well practice my technique on it.
Well as you can probably see, it didn't end up in the trash. It actually morphed into on of my favorite pieces from the series. The colors really pop against the line work, there's a ton of variation, and there is just so much energy and movement in the lines that I cannot stop looking at it. Just further goes to show that I have to believe and trust in the process instead of trying to be so controlling of my work. (What do you think about it? Do you feel the energy in it too?)
