Mark Howards’s watercolors are an immediate response to his environment: a marriage of structure and spontaneity. In a seeming paradox, the drawing underneath provides structure, while splashes of color lend the work a loose, stream-like quality. He compares his use of the brush to plants growing underwater. According to Mark, “There’s some wonderful stuff out there, fog, rain, water breaking over rocks, shapes, color, sounds.” He draws us into his experience of the changing moods of nature in compositions that are both organized yet flexible, anchored yet flowing.

---