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Cover Artist: Ken Bowser
Written By: Donna Rhodes | Issue: December - 2022
For cover artist Ken Bowser, watercolor is a medium that’s somehow both timeless and immediate.
Watercolor is known for its immediacy. Ken Bowser, who closes The Laurel’s 20th Anniversary Celebration with his holiday cover, explains its appeal.
“Watercolor is a direct medium. I load my brush with a proportionate amount of pigment and water, then apply it to paper. My mark is made. The color is true, clear and bright. With oils and acrylics, you can scrape, paint over, layer atop layer, but with watercolor, it’s the initial splash of color that makes the statement. There’s no un-do. Some artists find that daunting. To me, it’s pure magic.”
Ken has painted 6-plus decades (largely in water-based mediums) and is still going strong. Over the years he’s enjoyed plein air (and still does on occasion), but he says you have to be multi-dexterous to manage it: juggling umbrellas with one hand, articulating a brush and managing water in another, and thwarting blasts of wind, showers, and sun with a third hand (that spare hand which mothers, teachers, and artists seem to possess). Sometimes he surrenders and shoots photographs to paint in his home studio – even when his heart is out-of-doors. Ken says, “Subject matter often helps determine the medium used in a painting.”
He started painting in his mid-20s in a community art program. “Once a week a fella would lead an oil class. A couple of years thereafter a younger teacher took charge. In him I found a wonderful watercolor teacher whom I stuck with the rest of my life.”
Ken and his wife, Beth, a glass artist, traveled and studied Southwest Native American artwork in Denver, Santa Fe, and the mountains of Mexico.
He says, “It was a touring adventure as well as a
painting education.”
For nearly four decades Ken served as a United Methodist minister in Ohio. When asked if his artwork of Nature and landscapes related to his ministry, he thought a minute and said, “The creation factor is the connection. God’s gift of beauty is a sermon in itself.”
You can see Ken’s work in The Bascom, Tsartistry Gallery in Franklin, and Gallery One in Sylva. Inquire about a visit to his studio ([email protected]). He occasionally teaches; he’s an active member of the Highlands Cashiers Art League; and he participates in Studio Alive.
