"MY favorite subjects are visually complex, but I don't transfer drawings to watercolor paper and I hardly mix any color on my palette. I paint fast and loose. I capture most scenes - like the one in Colorado Landscape (watercolor on paper, 22 x 30) - in two to three hours max. Because I paint fast and loose, colors run, shift and mix together. To balance all these color changes, I include less detail to illustrate my subjects. My paintings are anything but simplistic, however. Too much uniform vagueness (or for that matter, uniform complexity) destroys rhythm, which is all important in my work.

     "I liken a painting to a symphony which couldn't exist without including both high notes and low notes. The "low notes" of my painting are the indistinct and undefined areas. The "high notes" are the areas rendered in greater detail. Colors are analogous to melodic strains. Areas of uniformly white or muddied colors are like the second or bass line, while passages of abruptly changing, bright colors are like the treble line, which carries the melody. Color and detail contrasts create a push-pull effect that ensures my paintings won't be mute."

     Frank Francese has been a professional artist and instructor since 1976. He's won a long list of awards, has had many one-man shows of his work and served as juror for numerous art shows. Francese is a signature member of the National Watercolor Society, The Transparent Watercolor Society of America, the Colorado Watercolor Society, Watercolor West, the Western Colorado Watercolor Society and the Watercolor U.S.A. Honor Society and the Taos Society of Watercolorists. Based in Grand Junction, Colorado, Francese teaches workshops across the country.

Guest Essay by Frank Francese – Watercolor Magic, February 2004