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MEDIUM: Watercolor on Paper
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SIZE: 10" x 7"
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STATUS: In a Private Collection
"This was my first attempt to depict blown soap bubbles in a watercolor painting. I became fascinated and inspired while watching and photographing my great-niece Olivia. Could I create these transparent perfect orbs, visible primarily by the reflections on their surface, in my artwork? A new challenge lay before me! Later I blew bubbles myself to observe them more closely, a challenge since they float off in unpredictable paths and disappear so quickly. I did numerous small tests on various surfaces, depicting bubbles with colored pencils, pastels, and watercolors. Each media and surface required different approaches and gave me a variety of results. I finally decided to incorporate my blown bubbles in a small watercolor on paper, using one of my reference photos of Olivia.
I purposely used bold coloring for this portrait versus realistic colors, even in her skin tones. To contrast, I painted the background primarily with slightly muted shades of greens, blues, yellows and browns. This also created a good foil for the colorful reflections on the bubble surfaces. I used masking fluid on areas of the bubbles so the white paper would be preserved and later painted those areas with bright rainbow colors. You'll see bubbles in larger paintings in the future! In the meantime, "Magical" seemed an appropriate title, since Olivia is an avid fan of Harry Potter books."
