36 Watercolor artist | DECEMBER 2019
prospect of painting. He has been
back to the island Lesbos fi ve times
since that transformative plein air
excursion. “On the fi rst trip, I just
noticed the cobblestone beaches we
were sitting on that fi rst day,” he says.
“I thought about how cool it would be
to fi nd an old piece of Greek pottery—
I had heard of it happening—but all
I could see were blue water bottle
caps. I started thinking of them later
as 21st-century Greek remnants.
I started paying attention to the cob-
blestones, rocks and twigs, and that’s
really when I came to watercolor as
a medium that I wanted to focus on.”Starting
in Sculpture
Stones, rocks and twigs are some of
McCormack’s most frequent subjects
and show up in many of his various
series, mostly as vehicles for creating
interesting visual designs instead of
for the beauty of the natural elements
themselves, which is perhaps a rem-
nant of the artist’s time in graphic
design and sculpture. In fact,
McCormack’s master’s degree was in
sculpture rather than painting, and
that may be where he fi rst fell in love
with rocks as art subjects (“try not to
make them look like baked potatoes,”
he advises). “Th e theme [for a project]
was ‘How would you present a moon
rock,’” he says. “I started the project
right in 1969 when they came back
from the moon with the fi rst rock.
Th e pictures showed rocks that looked
like what you could fi nd in a rubble
pile, so I thought about museum pre-
sentations. I built cases and made the
rocks with rubber and trapped air,
with timers and motors. Th e rocks
would take a breath, like they were
inhaling. Th ey’d expand a bit.”
McCormack says he planned the
motor to run erratically, so viewersTOP
Blue Sky at Night
(watercolor and gouache
on paper, 22x22)BOTTOM
Red Sky in the Morn
(watercolor on paper,
15x15)