Watercolor and ink on paper. 60” x 51” inch.
A wash of blues dominates the picture, layered and variegated like water seen from just beneath the surface. The composition feels circular and swirling: the eye is pulled toward a loose, horizontal figure running left-to-right through the center that is denser and warmer in tone — a mix of green, brown and tiny flecks of gold and rust — as if a ribbon of seaweed, sand or sunlit detritus has been caught in a current. Around that central image of a woman swimming, are many small, irregular marks and translucent washes in aquamarine, teal, cobalt and pale sky blue, creating a tessellated, almost mosaic texture.
Lighter areas toward the upper left let more white show through, giving the sense of reflected light or thin ice, while deeper navy strokes in the lower right add weight and shadow. The surface looks built up from many thin layers: some passages are soft and diffused, others are crisper and more jagged, so the piece reads as both watery and slightly crystalline. The overall effect is restless and meditative at once — like a memory of water rendered in fragments that glint and move as you study them.
January, 2026 Elspeth Tremblay
Watercolor and ink on paper. 60” x 51” inch.
A wash of blues dominates the picture, layered and variegated like water seen from just beneath the surface. The composition feels circular and swirling: the eye is pulled toward a loose, horizontal figure running left-to-right through the center that is denser and warmer in tone — a mix of green, brown and tiny flecks of gold and rust — as if a ribbon of seaweed, sand or sunlit detritus has been caught in a current. Around that central image of a woman swimming, are many small, irregular marks and translucent washes in aquamarine, teal, cobalt and pale sky blue, creating a tessellated, almost mosaic texture.
Lighter areas toward the upper left let more white show through, giving the sense of reflected light or thin ice, while deeper navy strokes in the lower right add weight and shadow. The surface looks built up from many thin layers: some passages are soft and diffused, others are crisper and more jagged, so the piece reads as both watery and slightly crystalline. The overall effect is restless and meditative at once — like a memory of water rendered in fragments that glint and move as you study them.
January, 2026 Elspeth Tremblay
