ART watercolour; the unforgiven/ing

I stumbled upon Samantha Hahn's illustration during one of my daily jaunts around the design blog block. I was struck by the vivid colours she uses in her watercolour work. She clearly is a master of controlling the uncontrollable. Soft bleeds and floods of colour yet contained just enough. Her work displayed on her website portfolio has a strong fashion focus which I can imagine being an extremely difficult subject to portray in watercolour (getting just enough detail to be recognizably unique but retain an emotional feel through soft illustration) yet she is able to highlight the pieces beautifully with her technique and palettes.

Watercolour is a medium I yearn to master yet don't have the ability to throw caution tothe wind and let the life of the medium do its thing. The discomfort with its "unc

ontrollability factor" is something I have never overcome. I am acontrol freak to a fault and if it what is in my head doesn't immediately leap to the page, I have NO ability to just go with it. It's such an unforgiving medium yet those, like Samantha, who can so artfully let gravity, water, air and the other earthly elements just DO THEIR THING, the results are breathtaking.

Nearing the due date of my son in 2009, I was apparently high

on pregnancy hormones and agreed to do a contract while on leave for the museum I work for. Approaching their 25th anniversary, the museum was planning a silver celebration exhibit highlighting 25 of their most fantastic finds. Having worked closely with the hired illustrator (Julius Csotonyi) we had used on numerous previous projects, I felt comfortable with the relationship and agreed to try my hand at watercolour work while he provided the line art. I wanted this to be an opportunity to force myself to learn a new skill and breech that discomfort zone. Many hours were spent frustrated and hallucinating from lack of sleep as a brand new mother and late nights working on version after version of each painting. We are all our own worse critics, but I am so hard on myself. I had no technique and absolutely no idea what I was doing.

In the end I made it through and the final pieces look great in the space. The painted illustrations were used in print, ads, text panels and other misc. applications. Looking back, past the frustration and the tears, I'm really glad I pushed myself to try and therefore grew in the process.

Below are a few of the final paintings in the series.