No. 266 - Light Leak Landscape Series

About the Series
For the past few years, I have developed a consistent style with my watercolor landscapes. When I sit down to paint its pure muscle memory to an extent. It’s not until I have these moments of play that I start to breaking the rhythm my hand is used to. Play with art is messy, it’s fun, keeps you on the edge of your seat because you just don’t know where it will lead. Will it be something amazing or a mess? I’ve had my share of both. This new series, Light Leaks, breaks that rhythm in a magical way.

Light Leaks is based on old photography that has been “damaged” in the camera. “A light leak is a hole or gap in the body of a camera, or other optical instrument, where light is able to "leak" into the normally light-tight chamber, exposing the film or sensor with extra light.” As I was experimenting one day, I looked down and that’s what I saw. An old photo in a dusty box, of some unknown location in history. Unknowingly by the photographer, their image had been distorted via the light leaking into the old camera body. The outcome of the image wouldn’t become known until developed some time later; ah the magic in the unknowing.

That’s how I developed this body of work, starting with a landscape then altered and “damaged” by the paints leaking from the edges into the image. I would not know what this outcome would truly be until finally dried some time later. How the process parallels to the original and for me that is the magic of this series.

Light Leaks.