Sunset Place

watercolor on 8" x 10" Daler-Rowney Langton Prestige NOT paper

Years ago, four of us were playing Scrabble. My brother-in-law laid down a word. The word was "ta" (rhymes with "pa"). It was triple word, triple letter, triple this, triple that.

"That's not a word!" we objected.

"Yes it is."

"Okay, what does it mean?"

"Uppity, hoity-toity, high society - we say that's "ta".

"Ah."

"Are you going to challenge it?" he asked, staring us down.

We decided not to challenge. And it was not a real word. Although now we have used the term for more than twenty years. He got his points, and he deserved them.

If you want to see a good example of "ta", go to L.W. Roth's wonderful post about the Washington elite in the early 1800's here.

My last post was a "ta" post, I suppose. And I've been fairly long-winded at the artist museum chats down here as well.  So I felt personally chastised when in his Twice-Weekly Letter, Robert Genn said about artists: "[T]here's always a long-winded, self-ordained pontificator. As Lao Tzu (4th Century BCE) pointed out, "Those who know do not speak; those who speak do not know."

Is that me? I hope not.

So this will not be a "ta" post, and about the watercolor, I will only say this: This was my second attempt to paint a building called Sunset Place in South Miami. I didn't consider the first attempt to be publishable. At first I laid the most beautiful washes. Simplicity was my byword. But to me it was boring. So I began making changes, adding colors, spots and streaks, and only then did I consider that it was done. So yes, I can lay a simple wash. It's just that you will never, ever see it.

There. I'm done.

If there was too much pontificating then you now know what to say: "Ta!" (while rolling your eyes)