a view on st. germain's watercolors and other mediums
Flow and color are the mark of Jeannette's watercolors.
She uses color to achieve the immediacy of emotions the subject provokes.
Her style is playful and gentle in contrast to her more serious, strong,
and minimal style in her oils. Her colors are often underplayed, contributing
to a soft and dreamlike atmosphere surrounding the scene.
She sees it as a newfound freedom to be able to let
go of the edges, and not having to paint every little detail. The experimental
gesture in the painting she considers more important than a realistic
rendering of the subject. She may change the scene according to what works
out better for the design and mostly makes one or more value sketches.
With watercolor Jeannette first paints the background in a wet-in-wet
technique, and then moves on to the focus of interest. She often starts
a landscape "en plein air," takes a few photos and finishes
the painting at home. The purpose of the photos are not to copy, but to
use as reference material. With her acrylics and pastel the edges are
mostly more defined than with watercolor or oil.
Spending long hours in the car on one of her trips in Europe inspired her to the beginnings of pastels. Even though Jeannette had decided two years before that she was not interested in pastel after reading about them, she bought some pastels and paper in Germany and it peaked her interest. So she bought some more in Holland. Back in the U.S. she became really excited about the variation in hardness among the pastel brands and being able to use her drawing skills more with this medium. She loves building up the colors in layers, beginning with the harder NU pastels, then Rembrandt's for the substantial layers, and ending with the Windsor and Newton's, and the buttery Selleniers. Even though the process may be comparable to glazing in the watercolor medium, she finds that it has a very different feeling and effect with pastel. To Jeannette every medium has it's own charm, and she chooses to enjoy them all!
Some art critics might view the differences in the mediums she paints as "not having found a unified style yet." But she experiences the different styles as several strands in passages she goes through. She emphatically claims, "Didn't Picasso, van Gogh, Mondriaan? If it is okay for them, it is okay for me!"
