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Crescents Painting

Warren Criswell

United States

Painting, Watercolor on Paper

Size: 27 W x 34 H x 0.3 D in

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ABOUT THE ARTWORK

Venus and Jupiter were in conjunction again, and even though I had recorded their last encounter in 2012, I felt obliged to do it again. This was the lineup around June 25, a crescent Venus, Jupiter, Regulus (in Leo) and the crescent moon tracing a larger crescent in the western sky, projected downward through the window across the road to the firefly in the foreground. I painted an oil of this first, and the woman appeared after I had applied the final glaze, drawn out with the butt end of my brush. A complete surprise! So for the watercolor I conjured her up again with white charcoal. This on heavy watercolor paper, 30 x 23 inches, mounted on 3/16" archival foamcore, 34 x 27 inches, ready for framing. WATERCOLORS When I returned to representational art in the late '70s, watercolor was my first love - probably because it was so different in technique from the abstract oils I had done back in Florida eight years earlier. I became a transparent watercolor purist, working from light to dark, no opaque paint, ever. I used masking fluid in all kinds devious ways to achieve intricate highlights I couldn't get by painting around them. I got over the purism eventually, and sumi dishes from Japan became my preferred watercolors. Some of the lighter colors are more translucent than transparent and can be almost opaque if dry-brushed, allowing me to use them on black paper a few times - something unheard of the watercolor world! But mostly I use white paper for light, and I still use the masking fluid when necessary. I try to get the same high contrast, dramatic chiaroscuro effects in my watercolors as in my oil paintings.

DETAILS AND DIMENSIONS
Painting:

Watercolor on Paper

Original:

One-of-a-kind Artwork

Size:

27 W x 34 H x 0.3 D in

SHIPPING AND RETURNS
Delivery Time:

Typically 5-7 business days for domestic shipments, 10-14 business days for international shipments.

"I was a loner as a kid, an only child, the kind that grow up to be terrorists, bank robbers or artists. I wasn't interested in terror but tried robbery, stole a watch in the third grade but got caught and took up art. They haven't caught me at that yet." (Warren Criswell) --- “I am saying that a journey is called that because you cannot know what you will discover on the journey, what you will do, what you will find, or what you find will do to you.” (James Baldwin) --- Warren Criswell was born in West Palm Beach, Florida in 1936 and has lived in Arkansas with his wife Janet since their bus broke down there in 1978. Primarily a self-taught painter, Criswell is also a printmaker, sculptor and animator. He has had 41 solo exhibitions in the United States and one in Taiwan. His work has been included in 77 group exhibitions in New York, Atlanta, Washington DC, Arkansas, Virginia, North Carolina, Germany and Taiwan, and is represented in the permanent collections of many institutions, including: The Arkansas Arts Center; the McKissick Museum of the University of South Carolina; The Morris Museum of Art, Augusta, GA; Historic Arkansas Museum, Little Rock, AR; the University of Arkansas at Little Rock; Capital Arts Center, Taipei, China; the University of Central Arkansas; Hendrix College; the Center for Arts & Science of SE Arkansas; and the Central Arkansas Library System, as well as in private and corporate collections in the United States, Europe and Asia. --- In 2021 he won the Arksnsas Governor's Award for Individual artist. In 1996 he was awarded a fellowship grant for painting and works on paper by the Mid-America Arts Alliance and the National Endowment for the Arts, and in 2003 an Individual Artist Fellowship Grant for painting and drawing by the Arkansas Arts Council. Warren Criswell is currently represented by M2 Gallery in Little Rock and Saatchi Art.

Artist Recognition
Artist featured in a collection

Artist featured by Saatchi Art in a collection

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