34 Watercolor artist | APRIL 2019
In 2017, after spending several
years painting babies and
children, Cavanaugh decided to
return to painting older models,
using a darker, more subdued
palette, which led to paintings
like Only You (above; watercolor
on clay panel, 24x24). “The
innocence and affection of the
sisters reminded me of old
Victorian photos.” Another
example from this time period is
Smolder (opposite; watercolor
on clay panel, 12x12), in which
Cavanaugh tried using
watercolor to create the
feeling of smoke.Ali Cavanaugh: Modern Fresco Paintings,
to be released this spring by Unicorn
Publishing. It was a revelatory project
in some ways. “Th e thing that jumped
out to me is the number of paintings
that I’ve created over the past 11
years,” Cavanaugh says. “We sifted
through hundreds of works to narrow
the collection down to a little more
than 200 for the book.”
Revisiting her body of work helped
the artist recognize how she has
consistently pushed herself to grow.
“Th e evolution of my concepts, and
recalling how certain ideas came to
fruition, was a wonderful revelationand refl ection,” she says. “Th e techni-
cal development over the years is
also interesting to note. When I fi rst
started painting on this [clay panel]
surface, I used a limited palette of
Payne’s gray, burnt sienna and burnt
umber. Th en my palettes grew and
became quite complex, up until 2015,
when I broke from tight realism and
ventured into a looser approach.”
A mother of four, Cavanaugh
paints in her home studio in her
hometown of St. Louis. She sells her
finished originals and prints on her
website, and she also works on a lim-
ited number of commissions. The