Midnight Magic (1999)
Watercolors and correction fluid on paper, 22" x 30"
Hey, why not add a third painting today? It's Saturday, and we have a long weekend to waste. Also, by publishing this post, I will have shoved all my older 2015 posts off the main page, so it appears like this blog is fully functional again. Whee.
Midnight Magic was my first fully watercolor painting in 1999. I was used to painting with acrylics on canvas for most of the past year. Everything up to that point had been zines (marker pens, cut-and-paste, text and photocopiers) and acrylics, so this was a perfect time to stretch my wings and try new things. This painting took a few days to create. The first layer was created on an outdoor table at a Dinkytown coffee shop, just playing around for fun. Later on, I worked in my student housing unit, adding layers of colors and textures. A couple layers of "liquid paper" was added for the Jackson Pollack abstraction, and then the final layers of colors were added.
I really like this painting. It's probably a bit amateurish, but I had been diligently studying every book on 20th Century abstract art that I could find. I did my homework. There are a number of changes I could make today, but the feel of the piece is there. The notes might miss, but the rhythm and the groove are spot on. This painting swings.
The title came from a 1982 computer pinball game, David's Midnight Magic, which appeared on the Atari 800. A version for the Atari 2600 was created in 1987, with an entirely different pinball board, under the same name. It was a nice gesture to videogames which, in those days, I treated as a guilty pleasure, if not a childish habit I needed to shake.
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