Watercolor Painting: Creative Color Collage with Edward Betts

[Music] abstract painting is a hisory to many people until they see and hear Master painter Edward Betts among his many major Awards 22 in all is the coveted National Academy Altman first prize for landscape his background of realistic painting makes Mr Betts eminently qualified to go beyond realism to the exciting provocative field of abstract and non-objective painting many artists are drawn to their subject matter out of of some kind of inner compulsion the compulsion in my case is for a certain Quarry in Maine which is not far from my summer Studio this is a quarry that I have come back to over and over again I've seen it under different light conditions in different weather and seasons of the year and each year I find something new and so I take time out to sketch it to record it again to remind myself of the forms the patterns the textures the details in the quiry that I may be seeing perhaps for the very first time I make a series of pencil sketches which I can refer to that I can take back to the studio whether I'm working in Maine or Illinois or anywhere else a sketch to me is only a sketch it's not a detailed document it's a very fast impressionistic version of the scene which I can refer to later on during the course of the year I assemble a series of panels which I paint at random just to get some kind of color activity started on them so when I come back to the studio after a sketching session look through them find a panel which will be suit able in size in proportion to the picture that I have in mind I like to have all my materials as close to me as I possibly can get them I want them within Arms Reach I want them so that I don't have to look or search I want them so I can lay my hands on them almost unconsciously the paints that I use are acrylic paints the white is placed in the corner of my palette at the upper left and then I place the warm colors along the top on the far side the cool colors on the leftand edge and the neutrals in the lower leftand corner the painting medium that I use is a half and half mixture of polymer medium and water I start completely at random um perhaps pasting tissue paper or rice paper on using the polymer medium what I put down is completely spontaneous it's accidental it's unpremeditated I have no idea of working toward any particular image at the back of my mind I confess I know I will be doing a quarry painting but that is not affecting any of the decisions or any of the activities that go on in the picture at this point as much as possible I like to make each picture a completely separate Adventure I try not to repeat myself I try not to fall into habits or formulas that I may have used before the main impulse being to create some kind of a surface out of which forms may be allowed to emerge and conceivably the idea of the quiry at the back of my mind May unconsciously influence certain choices one of the irritating things about painting is the fact that a torn piece of paper is sometimes a more interesting shape than one designed by the artist himself so I put the shapes on my picture fearlessly because I know that it doesn't really matter what is on the picture that I can change it revise it cover it up at any point that I choose the first pieces of paint the first areas that go onto the picture are done again very spontaneously and I put them on just to see how they look I want to find out what happens I even purposely disturb the surface of the picture by throwing paint on or by spattering it or by wiping off Parts anything I can do to find new Solutions new ways of solving uh my pictorial problems I use many materials while I'm painting I use small brushes big brushes knives I draw with sticks I even paint with paper I wipe off paint with a rag so that there is a variety of tools being used at all times line does a great deal to enhance the surface of a picture line by itself is is an important part of the picture sheer Mass sheer weight of color and tone are not quite enough I think that the line done with the knife can give the picture an added quality it sometimes increases the depth you can enjoy the interplay of line with the masses of color at some point or other during the progress of the picture I begin to find the image emerging I begin to find shapes which correspond to shapes in nature and from then on I may have decided that a certain area will become the sky and that the rest of the picture would become Rock and water so this becomes a kind of a control for decisions that come later I prefer a large brush in the early phases of a picture because it keeps me from getting too detailed and thinking too small too soon I want to think only in the largest simplest terms shapes that I tear out shapes that I paint in refer to that idea of Quarry Sky water light and this becomes a way of deciding what goes on next you aren't simply working blindly you get to the point where you are no longer working at random you are trying to finally form something you're trying to work out a picture which has been carefully thought out the random method applies only as a start for the picture but random does not finish a picture there must be some kind of visible order many areas are done several times not so much as a change or a revision but as a building up process of color glowing through top glazes all of these things build up an area toward uh final strong effect that is not arrived at easily it's been Disturbed it's been repainted it's been evolved very slowly and very painfully I'm afraid sometimes but this is the only way I feel that I can get a satisfactory surface that relates to the entire picture I paint a great deal with the painting knife because the dragging of the paint over the surface I find to be a much more interesting kind of line than the line which results from that drawn with a small brush a line done with the painting knife has an incisive quality it's the kind of of line that has a broken look to it and I find this a much more pleasant line than an easy kind of brush line I do not want to have simply flat paint which is of even consistency through throughout the entire surface of the picture I want to have it varied I want to have lumps and bumps and scratches I want to have stipple and spatter I want to have scrapes and glazes the only way to get this is to build it up freely and not to be conditioned too early in the creation of the picture by any preconceived ideas as to what the final result will be I don't like to find the finished picture too early I don't like to establish the final shapes the final textures too early in the picture I like them to evolve over a period of time so that I have a chance to allow things to occur to enjoy the paint to let things work out in an almost unconscious way and then capitalize on those accidents in the final painting the picture gradually begins to emerge and the more I become clear in my own mind as to what kind of a picture I'm dealing with what kind kind of form relationships are being set up the easier it is for me to begin to use that image whatever it may be whether it's a quarry or anything else as a means of guiding future decisions as to where the sky might be or what the forms might begin to suggest in the bottom part of the picture it becomes a much more thoughtfully designed picture by the time it's halfway through I know where I might use large masses of light and dark all these things are means to activating the surface they are ways to bring a broad range of pictorial effects even on a very small surface I continually have to clean the pallet off uh you're bound to have a very messy pallet and the only way to keep clean fresh color is to continually go back to a fresh mixing surface and get the color that you want the final stages are done with great care so there is a kind of a delicate balance to be hit here where you try to uh make it look free and bold and easy and yet on the other hand you want to have it controlled ordered structured and I suppose the degree to which you bring off that kind of a balance is some indication of the success of the picture forms appear casually and they disappear just as casually to me in the early phases of a picture nothing is sacred there isn't anything which is final it's important to step back from my work every so often I cannot stay with a picture too long without starting to get involved with only pieces of the picture I must see the picture as a whole as the picture becomes more clear as I can see more of what I'm aiming toward I begin to introduce a few realistic details I may suggest the ground or the Rocks more clearly I may show Shacks I may show dcks or cables details which are simply a matter of spots of design on my Surface but on the other hand they also serve as a point of reference to make the picture a little bit more meaningful and perhaps also to give more a sense of the gigantic scale of the Quarry in relation to a very small shack the picture is constantly being judged as to what the overall effect of it is I'm continually trying to see how the entire surface looks I'm going back over and over again to make areas work better to relate better better no one area can be seen by itself it must always relate to something else somewhere in the picture so I am constantly checking it as a whole rather than getting too involved in the subtleties of any one area Bits of Paper now are put on more carefully they are put on to strengthen the design to coordinate it as much as possible and the random idea has been put as side because the picture is now more important than the working methods that I was using in the start rice paper is particularly interesting to work with because it is almost transparent after it has been adhered to the surface of the picture you can get very subtle changes of color and tone very subtle bits of transparency of color showing through on the other hand the paper must not just be left to lie there it must not sit on top by itself it has to be integrated with the rest of the Surface by putting color over it by glazing over it in some way it must be made a part of the hole rather than a separate piece these brushes that I use in my work are sometimes very rugged house painting brushes and uh they tend to give me more what I want I can control them I know what they can do and what they can't do I know what size will fit what purpose and a rough coarse split brush is sometimes the one that I get my best effects with since I am doing a painting which is only semi-abstract not completely abstract there must be some suggestion here and there of natural motifs of areas that occurred in the subject itself so I I like to use indications that refer to an easily identified piece of nature such as rocks Stones houses that would give The Spectator some kind of a clue as to what I'm working with a more conscious search for some kind of order some pictorial composition that can be more easily read and assimilated by the eye other wi the picture becomes a completely non-objective design and almost meaningless and without scale every so often during the progress of the picture I take time out to put a transparent glaze of half and half polymer and water over the entire picture this does not disturb any of the paint that is already on there because it is completely waterproof and this glaze that I put on at frequent intervals as the picture gets further and further along act as a separating glaze between the underpainting and the areas that will come on top of it this adds to the richness and to the depth of the surface textures on the picture uh the polymer and water glaze also are a big help in bringing out color that may have possibly dried in the idea of knowing when you're finished of course is an important one they say that it takes two people to paint a picture that it takes the artist himself and it takes someone else to crack him over the head to let him know when it's done the idea of course should be that a person can develop his instincts to the point where he himself can sense when he's done and not rely on any outside assistance I in my own case find that I I know best when I'm done when I find myself doing unimportant details when I find myself wasting time on something that is complete in itself when I find myself putting things in that really are not adding essentially to the character of the picture when I find myself doing that I know it's time to be framed [Music] d