Getting work ready for the next Gallery Night on April 18 and a show in Mazomenie in May I decided to frame these water colors. I made these in the same period of time as the Jardin d'Esperanza 1 and 2,all of these paintings were inspired by the view from my house in early spring.The title Un Jardin d'Esperanza comes from an old tango sung by Carlos Gardel. Although spring has not arrived yet in Wisconsin, it's in the air and the color of the sky is getting that spring like vibrant blue, promising but still cool. No leafs unfolding however, there's still snow on the ground, but the first brave grape hyacinths are already peeping between Ivy leaves.
I painted these branches on Arches paper with the images floating on the white paper. Whenever possible I like to paint water color this way, with a visible irregular edge where the paint layers end. I usually create a vignette like field of color in which the 'action' takes place. I came to realise that I always like to give my paintings a breathing space, I frame my oil paintings in floater frames in order to give them half an inch of space and with the water colors I like to keep some white paper visible within the mat. I cannot say for certain where that originated but most likely from the time I did lithography (stone printing) in art school. I liked the somewhat soft and ragged border the stone left on the paper when printing a color field and felt it was a necessary addition to the image.
