I’ve been working hard at loosening up recently, and let me tell you: there’s nothing quite so therapeutic as taking a piece of cardboard out behind the barn and giving it a good swift beating—with a paintbrush, of course.
I’m starting to play around with ideas about the tension between chaos and order, and between raw and curated beauty; things that have been on my mind since I wrote The Silence Here. I think there’s a lot more gold to be mined here, and I’ve had a lot of fun already.
I was surprised to find that a loose, dripping, splattering technique also worked quite well in watercolour, a medium which I always enjoyed because of the amount of control it affords. I was amazed to find how beautifully it works when you relinquish some of that control, and let the paint just do what it wants. This photo doesn’t quite do it justice, but there are some really interesting things happening with the colours, especially around Chester’s eyebrows.
In short, I suspect I’ll be playing around with my newfound techniques more; there’s a lot more fun to be had here.
Dylan Brenneis 
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