IF RAINDROPS WERE COLORED by db Waterman

This street artwork focuses on a group of children, painted in shades of black and white. They stand huddled together, looking up with wide eyes and open mouths, as if catching the rain.

Above them, the sky is bursting with vibrant raindrops, each in a different shade - red, blue, green and yellow. The contrast between the monochrome children and the colourful rain is sharp and deliberate.

The black-and-white children represent innocence and simplicity, a blank canvas untouched by the complexity of the world. The colourful raindrops symbolise the beauty, diversity and richness of life, crashing down and touching everything they reach. The children are in wonder, as if seeing colour for the first time, highlighting the wonder and magic in the everyday.

Tools: Paint roller, Brush, Stanley knife, Scissors,
Colour: Grey, White, Black, Red, Blue, Yellow, Green, Pink
Technique: Painting, Collage
Medium: Canvas, Acrylic paint, Heavy gel, Pencil, Magazine paper

This artwork is offered by db Waterman

I remembered that as a young girl I so much liked to cut images from magazines to paste them into school agendas, scrapbooks and even on my bedroom door. Add to this the fascination I always had for walls filled with old posters, flaking paint, scrappy billboards and weathered paint, it opened an unexpected door for completely new opportunities. Completely unintended I found a new way of working, I felt pleasurably and comfortably at home in. What started out as copying old walls with worn out posters has grown into many series of new visual storytelling. Not simply just eclecticism, but bringing together many seemingly incoherent story lines into one completely new story, my own personal story. Initially it lacked the one thing that is important to me, the transparency that normally only is possible with the use of watercolor. The unforgiving layering of transparent watercolors is a challenge I would not want to miss and after a lot of trial and error I finally succeeded in getting the collages as transparent as a watercolor. Every layer of paper, oil, acrylic, pencil, crayon, ballpoint, watercolor, ink, charcoal and whatever else I use, remains visible in the artwork. You can imagine it made me feel the queen of the ball !

Learn more about db Waterman?

• All artworks by db Waterman
• Read all about this artist