Decanter and Stopper c. 1936

Here's Edward White's 'Decanter and Stopper', made with watercolor on paper. What I love is how the simple subject becomes complex and layered through colour. Imagine White at work here, pushing and pulling the paint, trying to capture the reflective nature of glass with a flat, opaque medium. The shade of red is so luscious, almost syrupy! I wonder if he was thinking about how light passes through the glass, how it distorts the world behind it. Painting is a process of inquiry. We're always responding to what's come before, building on the ideas of the past, adding our own experiences and insights. Each brushstroke is a thought, a feeling, a decision. And in that way we are all in conversation, across time and space, inspiring one another's creativity.