Days of You and Me: Day 3, Water Painting

Water painting is a pretty straightforward undertaking.  All you need is water, paint brushes, maybe some sponges, a cup or bucket, and well, yourselves.  To get busy painting with water, Annabelle and I sat down on a sidewalk alongside our town’s fountain.

At first, water painting was serious business.  Annabelle would dip her brush in her black plastic bucket and really think about what it was that she wanted to paint: In the words of Picasso, “I paint objects as I think them, not as I see them.”

And in the words of Pollock, “The painting has a life of its own.  I try to let it come through.”   I wonder whether Pollock would’ve enjoyed splattering water on a hot dry sidewalk . . .

because in a couple of seconds, the painting evaporates to the sky.  Luckily, Annabelle didn’t seem to mind collecting more water . . .

especially since wet feet and wet hands make for great sidewalk painting . . .

Picasso tells us that “painting is just another way of keeping a diary” . . .

could it also be that painting is just another way to make friends?

But perhaps Henry Ward Beecher said it best: ” Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures.”

What water painting brings to (my) mind is just how transitory beauty and life can be.  In one moment, we are painting suns, star fish, hand and feet prints, trees and houses, and dogs too, and the next, our paintings are gone, we are drying off with a towel, and one more day, one more moment we will treasure, has passed.

It kind of makes me grateful for photography . . .

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