This week, we asked Crum about her beautiful and creative art process. Breaking from the norm, Crum uses watercolors on hand-made printmaking paper to achieve amazing imagery. We were wondering how the process had gone for Phase I of “The Dream Sequence Series,” and this is what she had to say:

I created this piece in 2016, and it was the first painting I made using my new process after several experiments. This piece was created very quickly, in a matter of hours, over several evenings. I also created it simultaneously with the second piece of the series, “Phase II.” I believe the piece was so successful because of trial and error, playing with different technique and mediums and seeing which usages of the watercolor, water, and paper were most successful.

My studio has a collection of old materials that I like to re-use and create with when I work at home. I accidentally bought the liquid watercolors as part of a fun activity for my students that were going to be used as part of a tie-dye project, but it turns out that the colors wash right out of clothes and are color-fast on paper.

Then, as far as the hand-made printmaking paper goes, I ordered a pack of it to create more drawings like this one that I created in 2015, titled”Fight or Flight.” I worked with charcoal and oil pastels for most of my time in my budding studio in 2014, but I slowly started to use watercolors as well.

I was spending a lot of time in the summers traveling and painting with a small set of traditional watercolors while abroad, but once I was back in my large studio room for the long winter of 2015, those liquid watercolors and the pack of printmaking paper became a passion of mine. I didn’t know what would really happen! “The Oracle” is really the first piece I’ve created with liquid watercolor on printmaking paper. Now, I am purchasing a higher-quality of liquid watercolor paints as I try to perfect my medium and explore this technique in the future.

J.E. Crum is an amazing example of how using any sort of medium and creating new techniques can open new doors of creativity. At the end of the day, one just has to be creative to achieve greatness, the same way Crum is able to create these amazing artworks.

If you’ve enjoyed any of Crum’s works, you can follow her Facebook page and visit her website for upcoming events and shows she will be attending.