Attwool shares handmade happiness
Published 9:39 am Tuesday, May 21, 2013
Kim Attwooll squirts water onto heavy paper and loads her brush with light lilac. She touches brush to paper, and the pigment blooms to wherever the water touches the paper.
“I’m not trying anything special,” Attwooll says. “I’m knocking color into puddles. I’ll put my opera color here, and shadows form where the light’s not hitting. Then one more pass with the dark purple. I use Cheap Joe’s royal amethyst. He’s a chemist but now owns Cheap Joe’s Art Supplies. Joe Miller, I learned so much from him – like, don’t paint individual trees, paint masses of them.”
Attwooll paints prolifically and playfully. Her Miracle Wedge brush definitely has been her longtime favorite; 98 percent of her work has been painted with the same, tidy brush.
“So I’m knocking color into a puddle, then pouncing the green into it,” Attwooll says, as a lovely lilac with green leaves appears. “With wet and wet, the colors are marrying on the paper. Look at that quinacridon gold with the opera. I’m letting them explode, then softening the edges.”