Aquarelle- The Spirit of Matter, Orbach and Galkin, 1997

Aquarell by Nona Orbach, 2020 12X18 cm.

Medium Characteristics

Watercolors can be found as solid cakes in a pan or as an ointment in tiny tubes. The color is transparent and appears bright and glowing when placed on a white sheet of paper. It dissolves and becomes diluted when in contact with water, allowing it to spread easily.

Therapeutic and Spiritual Significance

As a medium, aquarelle conveys water and air. It reflects lightness, serenity, aesthetics, flow and transparency. Due to its characteristics, it has spiritual qualities as a sense of uniqueness and a sense of a singular moment that will not return. Working with watercolor requires skill and restraint. When you try to create color again and again, the paper gets soggy and the color loses its brightness. This medium has a maximum peak point of glow and inner luminance as layers dry before painting another on top. If the brush touches the wet paper too many times on the same spot, it will get muddy and start fading.

Working with watercolor presents a paradox: on the one hand it requires experience and skill in using the brush and measuring the color amounts, as mechanical motions that create infertile patches of color; and on the other it provides movement driven by emotion, a sense of breathing, flow and letting go, which passes on to the paper through the body and hand, enriching the painting with living, vibrant marks. This tension between knowledge and technical experience, as opposed to free-flowing and loose motion, along with supreme concentration, is the essence of aquarelle. The client's ability to move in between these two poles is manifested in a great amount of mobility on the paper. Discipline and knowledge aside, spontaneity and emotion are required, while errors and lack of precisionin the tension between the two are immediately evident. ”Errors” are fixable only if the paper is of high quality and the painter it skilled. In this sense, watercolor is a very difficult medium. It requires great sensitivity to color and much patience for creating the desired shade, layer by layer. Sometimes there is a need to wait until the previous layer has dried, to avoid “mud” and allow the paper to maintain its brightness and luminance. The client works on a well-wetted sheet of paper. He places one drop of color. The water carries the hue all over, far away from the center of the drop. While observing this physical event occurring on the paper, a mental-emotional process occurs simultaneously, expanding and elevating beyond the concrete. That is, this is an experience of taking hold of a place and space in the world: “My drop spread everywhere”.

When a different color is added, both of the drops expand, blend and create an integration of two spaces that create a third. Therapeutically and spiritually, these moments represent a meeting and integration of two different mental energies, of two distinctive and perhaps even opposite natures that culminate in an emotional experience of coming together as a whole to create a third.

The use of watercolor attracts aesthetic, spiritual parts in one’s self. It is unsuitable for people in a state of insecurity and emotional ambiguousness; it may threaten them and create feelings of emptiness, vagueness and lack of meaning. This illustrious medium requires the client's concentration and emotional and spiritual strength. Without these, it lacks "synapses" and its presence may be experienced as meaningless, empty and frightening.

When I use watercolor, me, my feelings, my hand movement on the paper, my body movement, my breath that is coordinated with the colorful brushstrokes, all come together to give a sense of oneness and wholeness. That is when the artist may get the sense of a whole “I”, that sees all its parts of being here and now, placed transparently and calmly on the paper. In and of itself, the reflection of oneself in such an imposing and stately medium enables a feeling of wholeness and precision.

In conclusion, many factors come together to make a quality watercolor painting: the ability to move easily and as needed between knowledge and experience; knowing the colors and the way to dilute them; an ability to imagine what a patch of color on the paper will look like; familiarity with the brushes, their movements and how they appear on the paper; a connection with the body and its movement and breath that can produce a flowing motion. The connection between body – emotion – thought, exercise, and learning the matter, and bringing all these to a state of a patch of color and its mobility on the paper. This transparent, noble and evasive medium requires the creator’s balance and strength, as well as a sense of intention, centrality and focus. Succeeding in watercolor offers the fullest experience of a sense of wholeness that a client feels in the therapeutic process.

Working with watercolor with young children may emphasize loss of control and regression. Therefore, it is necessary to ensure the workspace is well-organized: good-quality wetted paper sheets are ready on the table, alongside jars of diluted paint with a paintbrush for each color. A personal set like this for each child. There is also a need for sponges, a drying space and aprons. This serves to protect the child from the chaos that may develop in his encounter with watercolor. It affords the child a non-threatening work environment that introduces him to softness, light, flow, surprise, curiosity and spontaneity.

It seems that watercolor enables adolescents to work in abstract and unplanned directions. We noticed they like drawing on the colored surfaces with water-resistant black pens. Adolescents who have a hard time finding an inner image as the subject of their drawings enjoy the aesthetic encounter with the technique and derive a surprising sense of achievement out of it. The light and color that reflect from the paper stimulate them to continue creating.

Surfaces and Tools

• Paintbrushes - soft Chinese brushes made of bamboo or other soft and high quality brushes (round and flat).

• Other materials - a hard pencil, marker or nib can combine nicely with watercolor.

• A high-quality surface will improve the work.

Working with Aquarelle

Watercolor painting is done at a table. The artist stands or sits, depending on ability. Standing emphasizes the anchoring of the two feet on the ground, providing a sense of the body being ready for the challenge and the mobility expressed on the paper. It is possible to do some breathing and movement exercises before drawing, in order to encourage concentration and observation.

In order to put paint on the paintbrush, first load the brush with water and gently stroke the cake of paint. Gently and gradually the paint sticks to the brush and it feels soft and velvety when placed on the paper. Do not go over the color, just a touch and let go. You will be able to get back to it only after it dries. In the meantime work on other areas of the paper. You can also paint on wetted paper by dipping it in a bowl or the sink. The wetted paper should be placed on a clean smooth surface. It is suggested to lean it at a 25 degree angle towards the artist. Absorb the extra water with a sponge to iron the creases out of the paper and make it stick to the surface.

Initial Encounters

• One color, one paintbrush – what can they create? An invitation to explore the variety of possibilities in working with just these two - “an experimental laboratory."

• Working with one color, but with several different concentrations of water. Trying a few different motions with the same paintbrush. What happens when it meets the paper? Trying to place the paintbrush on the paper at different angles towards the paper, from 90 degrees to total diversion. o Try the same exercise, but pay attention to the body while doing breathing exercises and then standing firmly on both legs in front of a table. Is there a difference between the two ways of working?

• A harmonic palette – chose two colors (for example yellow-red, blue-yellow, blue-red). The sheet of paper is a laboratory for testing various shades that can be created from the two colors. On the upper right hand corner of the paper place a clean yellow patch of color, and red on the upper left hand corner. Create a trail of spots from yellow to red and from red to yellow. All color mixing should be done on the palette only, or in transparent glass cups, rather than on paper! The colors placed on the paper should already be thoroughly mixed.

• Working on wet paper to create a monochrome surface. It takes a flat, soft, broad brush, and watercolor diluted in a glass of water (about 15% color). The paper is wetted and saturated. Place the color in horizontal and vertical stripes, each stripe touching its neighbor with an overlap of 1-2 millimeters. This work is a continuum, with the goal of full surface coverage. After it dries, this paper will be saved as a surface for another work.

• Therapists not trained and experienced with this medium should practice the four exercises, each on at least three papers.

A useful video based on this text for studying art and art therapy.

The text is based on The Spirit of Matter / A Database Handbook for Therapists, Artists, and Educators Nona Orbach and Lilach Galkin, 1997

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