Watercolor on YUPO
Image 29″H x 21″W, Frame 38″H x 30″W

Juror Nicholas Simmons’ comments on awarding this painting 2nd place in Waterloo Watercolor Group’s 37th Annual Spring Membership Exhibition, Austin Texas: “This is a beautiful composition.  It shows a lot of control on yupo, which is difficult.  There is consistent handling: there is some realism and some looseness and these don’t fight each other.  The textures are interesting, and it works to have some unfinished parts. There is verve and joy.  The painting doesn’t look labored.”

Artist Statement: “Riding in a rickshaw down a congested, noisy, narrow street in Vrindavan, India last year every view screamed “Paint me”! I kept my camera on my lap and constantly clicked the shutter button so as not to be an obvious American tourist and offend any of the people I was hoping to get in my photographs. For the composition of these women, I removed two, kept three, tilted them, thought about the cropping to make it more dynamic, altered the background shapes and values. I enjoyed using a big brush to paint on the slick Yupo surface to capture the colorful moment and the cacophony memory.”