Today’s watercolor experiment:

My pen point did a bit of walking* for this experiment. Unlike yesterday’s doodle, my peripatetic pen created a completely closed form today. I did lift the pen tip from the paper a couple of times to draw a couple of circular forms. I don’t remember the thought process that led me to do this, but I know it had something to do with my older brother Mike. Mike is autistic, low functioning and nonverbal. He seems to have independent control of his eyes. They are seldom aligned; one is always looking in a different direction than the other.

I colored the shapes on upper part of the composition with unsaturated blue pigments (indanthrone and ultramarine blue) for maximal contrast with the yellow, saw-tooth-edged shape. I wanted the yellows to stand out as beacons. The other shape that spans the space between the two orbs is my own formula for flesh tone (cadmium red, titanium white and yellow ochre).

Comment:

The idea of introspection in this study begins by understanding that the orbs are abstractions of eyes. They can be eyes of one brother or both brothers. One searchlight emerges from the vicinity of one eye and illuminates the other. The other searchlight is directed at nothing in particular. There is no resolution in this abstract; no resolution, just searching.

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* The artist, Paul Klee, described drawing as “taking a pencil point for a walk.”