Oohh, such lovely watercolours! The style is fresh and full of light. The colours are pure and expressive.
I like the happy spontaneous look, no need to be restricted by static straight lines and realism. Let the street lights dance!
I discovered these watercolours on Facebook last winter, showing up one at a time as they were completed. They have personality galore and attract me even more because I know the locations well. I walk on these streets everyday when I'm in Oaxaca.
I contacted the artist, Brian Parks, who lives there and he graciously allowed me to share his work on my Caboose gallery.
Even his power lines are lively above the Café Nuevo Mundo.
Here's the famous Templo de Santo Domingo, begun in 1575 by the Dominicans and finished 200 years later. It was magnificently restored in the 1990's, they say it includes 60,000 sheets of genuine gold leaf. I stop in regularly to gawk and admire.
It's the subject of countless paintings but Brian's original take on it is a sweet pleasure.
This brick courtyard with the fountain is just a half-block from our apartment. There's no sign of a restaurant in the daytime but at night it fills up with tables and glowing strings of lights.
The corner gates below mark the entrance to what used to be the Cavalry Regiment, home to the horse barns when the earlier Dominican monastery complex was taken over by the military around 1900. They stayed about a hundred years. The space was reinvented in 1994 as the hugely popular 2.3 acre Jardín Etnobotánico, a garden that's half flora and half anthropology. More about this exceptional venue in another post.
I love the intensely painted trees and the strong focus of the angled corner with the contrast of the evaporating sides. It's not the subject matter itself that really counts in artwork, it's the way it's painted.
The watercolours here are all Brian's work, but photos of the buildings are from my collection. It's a small city, we walk the same streets.
Thank you Brian! Your work is inspiring. I think I'll throw away my ruler and try look at those familiar places with a Parks eye the next time I open up my box of watercolours.
Thanks too for letting your warm images from Oaxaca be transported to chilly Saskatchewan.
