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Building
Portraits
I see my work as a mixture of visual documentation and poetry, where attentive observation is saturated with emotions ranging from lighthearted and sweet to melancholic.
In the San Francisco Bay Area for instance, I am overtaken by the diversity of beliefs, lifestyles and tastes one can see just by looking at people's homes and the way they treat the landscape. The free, lush and wild tastes in the gardening are more dominant that the manicured. Carefully cared for but casual gardens are more
typical than neatly trimmed lawns. Vegetable plots are often intertwined with flowers--it is not unusual to see tomatoes growing in someone's front yard, not to mention the bountiful abundance of
political signs.
In my Bulgarian Building Portraits, on the other hand, significant civic environments
inspire me as often as the vernacular. Plazas and public buildings particular to the older parts of the city were especially interesting with their diversity of uses, richness of scales, textures and details.
All these building portraits are done directly from life. I start by making a thumbnail sketch. I work on the actual watercolor both from life and the sketch. The sketch keeps me focused on the essence of the idea, while looking at the reality connects me with the flavor of the details. I start by working "wet", using generous amounts of water and large brushes, then use the finer brushes to develop the details until the paper dries. For me it is important to make the artwork in the environment that inspires it--from life.
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