"Juggling" Marionette c. 1936

James McLellan made this watercolour on paper, called "Juggling" Marionette," and it gives me a backstage pass to McLellan’s imaginative world. I’m thinking about how he built up the image with thin layers of translucent paint, and what it means to translate a three-dimensional object onto a flat plane. He presents the marionette, plus a profile view of its head, and the crossbars used to make the puppet dance – it's like a collection of ideas for a play. The washes of green, pink, and tan create a harmonious, almost dreamlike quality. You can sense the artist carefully building up the contours and details. The thin paint allows the white of the paper to shine through, creating a sense of lightness and transparency. In painting you are trying to make something that feels alive, just like McLellan was, sharing his vision and inviting us to see the world through the eyes of a puppeteer. Painting is an ongoing conversation across time, inspiring creativity and breathing life into new visions, over and over.