Dean of Watercolorists

 

Essay 18. DEAN OF WATERCOLORISTS

By Arnaldo Bernabe Mirasol

In contrast to the two guys I wrote about previously, Jerry Dean was a very disciplined student. Unlike Jojo Garcia and Mon Villanueva, Jerry diligently attended his classes, passed his plates on time, and abhorred gallivanting and indulging in vices.

He was one classmate I have not lost track of over the years. We are compadres. He is godfather to my younger son, Kai. We were also partners once in a t-shirt printing business.

Jerry and I shared the same love for adventure outdoors. We snorkel, trek mountains, and camp out a lot. He had climbed Mt. Pulag which is very much higher than Mt. Makiling, the mountain I and my Tondo buddies climbed in 1981.

The activity we've done together often was snorkeling. We've snorkeled in Marinduque, Zambales, and Cebu. He joined us for a vacation one summer in Oslob, Cebu, in 1994. Not one day passed then when we didn't go to  sea. We borrowed a small banca every morning and paddled out to where the corals are, returning to the house only when it was time to eat our lunch.

Jerry worked for many years in animation, first as special effects, and later, as background artist. His stint in this field honed his skill in watercolor techniques. With the advent of the computer, he was compelled to learn Photoshop and other digital painting programs, skills that served him in good stead when he opened a business later on..

Jerry had also worked in Vietnam and Singapore as animation background artist, and in Kuwait as muralist. Although the latter job also paid well, he confessed that he'd rather not do murals again if the job includes doing ceiling paintings. He complained that long hours of looking up and staring at the ceiling gave him a bad neck.

His marriage opened for him another career--- that of baker and cake decorator. His wife, Franz, you see, owned a bakery, and she encouraged Jerry to enroll in a cake decoration course. Jerry did, and the knowledge he acquired he put into good use when he went to work in Singapore as cake decorator. He was back after almost a year's stay in Singapore and is again indulging his true passion which is watercolor painting.

Jerry likes his watercolor paintings wet---that is, he loves applying watercolor paints or inks on wet paper. The effect he's aiming for is the one where the paint explodes or spreads out upon contact with the wet surface.

Jerry's 2011 works, "Self-Contentment" and "Fusion of Archetypes", are very much pared down and very colorful---a far cry from his earlier works whose backgrounds are packed with realistic details and whose color scheme are muted somewhat by his use of somber earth colors.

That is all to the good, because his abstract treatment of part of the background of his recent works gives the paintings a more spontaneous and fluid quality, which are traits one always looks for in watercolors. Freshness was achieved too when he allows his fluid reds, blues, yellows, violets, and ochres to merge, meld, and explode into each other.

When his love affair with watercolor will end Jerry can't answer as of yet. He had implied that he hasn't exhausted all the possibilities of the medium. As things stand he is just into herons, swans, flowers, and boats. So, we can expect Jerry to devote several years more to watercolor if he intends to take on the challenge of depicting subject matter other than his beloved outdoors and its denizens.

Jerry and Franz now live in Bacoor City, Cavite.  They operate a printing shop there, which also doubles as Jerry's art studio and gallery. That is where Jerry does his watercolors now, which have become more refined and masterly with time.