by Robert Leedy
watercolor on Fabriano Artistico 140 lb. Cold Press paper
22" x 44"

framed.

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Phil Sandusky is a good friend and fellow artist who lives in New Orleans, Louisiana. We met through our mutual love of plein air painting. Phil is originally from Jacksonville (as I am), and we made the interesting discovery that we grew up within under a mile of one another; however, our paths never crossed. It wasn’t until 2016 that we first met. Later, we discovered we both were exhibiting artists in the first Avondale Artists on the Avenue show, an outdoor exhibition in Jacksonville that began in 1977(?) It was my first exhibition, and I was awarded Best in Show for a watercolor painting I did in college. The judges were Mun Quan, a watercolorist, and Cleve Miller, Phil’s painting instructor and mentor. As Phil recalls, “I actually remember your painting, but I don’t remember you.” We both get a laugh from that.

Phil is a very talented oil painter who focuses on architectural subject matter of which New Orleans has an endless supply. The majority of his work is done en plein aire, and he is the author of several collectives of his work. One is “Painting Katrina,” an amazing documentation of Hurricane Katrina’s destruction through his paintings.

Phil returns to Jacksonville frequently, and we always get together to plein air paint together. Kingsley Plantation is a favorite location for both of us. My painting above is rather an homage to both Phil and Kingsley Plantation. Because our oil and watercolor mediums are so different, I chose to paint his canvas and oil palette with gouache. This opaque watercolor employs techniques similar to oil, though it is water-based. Unlike oil painting, where white paint is often used as a mixing color, watercolor relies on added water to lighten a color, and the white of the paper is used for a pure white. yet the addition of white to oil paint often creates tones of a color that can be unattainable in watercolor. The addition of white to colors in gouache is very common, which makes it a water-based medium closely tied to oil techniques.

My painting is difficult to identify as a watercolor because of the texture, which mimics that of an oil painting. It is a simple application of an acrylic medium which keeps it as a water medium. The underlying watercolor is treated with an archival varnish, alleviating the need for matting and glazing. One of the negatives of watercolor as a medium is the traditional need for framing under glass, which can cause reflections that interfere with viewing. This technique eliminates that barrier.

I chose a panoramic format not only to portray the marvelous vista offered at Kingsley Plantation but also as a visual relief from the ubiquitous 4 x 5 or 5 x 7 horizontal format we encounter so much through painting and photography. This painting offers a nice visual change to that.

This painting presentation process is certainly not unique to me though at the time, it was not widely used. My framer, Ryan Buckley, and I coined this “The Pablo Process” based on a portrait I did of fellow artist Pablo Rivera, which was my first experiment with a non-matted, non-glazed watercolor painting.