John Salminen’s watercolors of urban scenes are rich with beautifully finessed textures, nuanced value relationships and subtle juxtaposition of high chroma passages against more muted colors.
He has a particularly appealing technique of leaving sparkling highlights within broader textural areas of treetops and foliage, together with a sensitivity to the effects of light in a variety of seasons, times of day and atmospheric conditions.
I particularly enjoy the way he pulls a sense of changing light from within shadowed areas, creating the feeling that light pervades the painting, playing hide and seek in the darker passages.
Salminen is widely recognized, with numerous awards and mentions in prominent publications.
Note that the gallery on his website has multiple pages, linked from numbers at the bottom of the page.
There is a brief YouTube video of Salminen discussing watercolor, another of him lifting color with a Magic Eraser, and another that is a trailer for a commercial DVD: Urban Landscape in Watercolor with John Salminen, available from CCP Videos, or from North Light as a digital download.
There is a more recent video, A Designed Approach to Abstraction, also from CCP Videos, though it seems a departure from his signature style (trailer on Vimeo).
Salminen also teaches workshops at various locations in the U.S. and Canada.
