Caroline A Doucette

International Watercolorist 118 3rd Avenue NWRugby, ND 58368 701.776.6194

RESUME ETC 1

Updated September 2, 2024

Caroline A. Doucette

I absolutely love to get right up close to and into my paintings. I find it just a pure pleasure to explore how the shapes fit together. Touching the different textures and colors are just a delight to taste. I love the transparencies inherent to watercolors. The fact that I can obtain the brilliant strong colors, as well as, get the deep darks that causes it all to come together and sparkle just makes watercolor the preferred choice for me. When the painting teases my senses, when I can taste and smell and hear the colors, textures, values, the petals, the grasses, the air, the water, then I am transformed into all that is good and right in man and I am allowed to walk amid this wonderful, strange world. A piece of Eden. I was once a purist in my painting. I have come to know that all that counts in the end is the results. It’s a good painting or it is not. If a little gouache will save the highlight that you lost, you might have saved the painting. If it doesn’t well, it’s still a bad painting. Everything is relativity. If the color is cooler than its neighbor the cooler color will go back. If the cooler is warmer than it will come forward in the painting. A painting can sparkle if the values are right. By
knowing the rules, a rule can be broken making the painting. Square paintings have been used with great eloquence and a centered horizon can demand attention. Artists should be risk takers. I don’t mean jumping off building or driving at fast speeds. We should be interested in the world round us, in exploring new ideas, questioning new and old believes, questioning ourselves and always seeking truth and freedom. This should be expressed in our work and we should not be mistaken for another’s work. Once, I saw the world as black and white, right or wrong, but I’ve learned that all the variations, the gray, the browns, all, make it a very delightful world. I want to challenge others to see it and to be all that they can be, happy and free, to see all the good there is out there. I want others to see how wonderful and magnificent this life is, to begin the journey, to become the seekers. Art can heal and teach both the artist and the viewer. No matter what horrid thing happens, art can work thorough it. It can work thorough anything and if healing is what is desired it will bring the peace. Let the art teach you. When things in your life change so will the artwork. When your artwork changes so will your life. I believe that if you have an artist block, it is due to changes going on, in either your life or your artwork. Either way you need to work through it. If you’re not sure what you’re working through the art will teach you that as well. I believe the fastest and easiest way through an artist block is the process of the art. The artist gains much from the doing of the artwork. If that feeling is one-tenth of what I get out of my painting, it is all the reason to the artist to continue doing it. What is the secret? The whole thing comes down to how do you improve, how do you develop your own style, how to say what you have to way, what will make the art magic, or how to gain the recognition of your peers and the public? The secret is very simple, the easiest and yet hardest to accomplish. I will gladly share it with you.

PAINT! PAINT! PAINT!