from a Wordpress post made in 2008.
"Duscan Tusk"
by Robert Leedy
watercolor on Arches Cold Press paper,
Collection of The Estate of Isadore Brodsky & Estela Pagán, San Juan, Puerto Rico
On a recent visit to Puerto Rico, I revisited a painting I did in 2000, which is owned by my wife's aunt, who lives there. It is nice to see these old paintings—they're sort of like long-lost children.
"Tuscan Dusk" was painted on a trip to Italy in 2000. It is what I might classify as an abstract - there is not a lot of detail, although there is a sense of a hillside Tuscan town, which is where it was painted. The painting was painted with a very limited palette, which often frees my mind from having to make difficult color choices while racing against time and drying washes. The dark silhouettes suggest an Italian cityscape, yet the shapes are very simplified, and the painting could also be merely an abstract play with colors. The beauty of watercolor is often in the simplicity of shapes and the economy of brushwork. This might even be classified as a deconstructed landscape. Many successful watercolors might have the illusion of complicated design but are pretty simple and straightforward as you attempt to reconstruct - or better - deconstruct - the painting.
I like this painting a lot for its simplicity and mood.