Dave Emrich
Artist's Statement
Watercolors are a way for me to loosen up my normally tight drawing
style. For as long as I can remember I've been able to draw whatever I
look at in photographic detail. I won my first art contest in 1974,
when I was five years old. I drew the Apple Jacks cereal characters
for a contest that was listed on the back of the box, and I still
remember getting the envelope in the mail with a five-dollar bill in
it. Since that time I've done many tightly rendered drawings, and it
wasn't until I was introduced to watercolors in 1991 by Satoko
Motouji, a Chinese brush artist living in Eugene, Oregon, that I
finally understood what people meant by expressing themselves through
art. Watercolor's ability to create lost edges and transparency
allowed my work to have more of an emotional quality that was missing
in my more clinical drawing style. The act of losing myself to the
moment when painting a watercolor is as much a reward as the finished
piece.
Watercolors are a way for me to loosen up my normally tight drawing
style. For as long as I can remember I've been able to draw whatever I
look at in photographic detail. I won my first art contest in 1974,
when I was five years old. I drew the Apple Jacks cereal characters
for a contest that was listed on the back of the box, and I still
remember getting the envelope in the mail with a five-dollar bill in
it. Since that time I've done many tightly rendered drawings, and it
wasn't until I was introduced to watercolors in 1991 by Satoko
Motouji, a Chinese brush artist living in Eugene, Oregon, that I
finally understood what people meant by expressing themselves through
art. Watercolor's ability to create lost edges and transparency
allowed my work to have more of an emotional quality that was missing
in my more clinical drawing style. The act of losing myself to the
moment when painting a watercolor is as much a reward as the finished
piece.
