Percisionism Watercolor Project

Student watercolor breaks up space in the style of Demuth

 Charles Demuth was one of the immaculate American Modernist painters of the 19020's and '30's. I love him, not only for his art, but for being a fellow native of Lancaster County, PA. In fact, his Lancaster studio was just a mile from hospital where I was born, and a mile and a half from the church I attended growing up. He, like Frida Kahlo, Henri Matisse, and Andy Warhol, was gifted art supplies by his family when bedridden with an illness. Sharing game changing careers born from challenges is another thing I love. I don't want my students to see their visual impairment or other disabilities as an excuse, but an opportunity for growth.

Precisionists, as they've come to be known, are modern American painters who broke away from the quick brush strokes of the Impressionist landscapes, and drew upon Cubism and Futurism as they painted hard edged planes. They relished in man-made structures and the beauty of the industrial age. Demuth's "I Saw the Figure Five in Gold" was based on his friend William Carlos Williams' poem about a fire truck. I read the poem, "The Great Figure" and described how it was interpreted with fractured planes and the one point perspective with the 5 receding in space.

This movement is a great way to teach linear perspective. We carried watercolor into a second week so that students can get a better grasp on the medium and make small adjustments to the hues as the planes shift. Demuth sometimes painted in gouache, an opaque watercolor. It was a tidy week that incorporated art history, literature, essential drawing techniques and basic water color processes in one lesson.