Artistic Foundation of a Watercolorist

In 1978, when I first met the watercolorist Terry Magill, she had already achieved international prominence with her major illustrated work published by Little Brown of Boston, entitled Atlas of Clinical Anatomy. In this book Magill used opaque watercolor to illustrate over 325 pages of the human anatomy. Her two and a half year effort to meticulously create this immense, internationally known body of work was what first caught my attention. And she has continued to hold my attention ever since.

It was with this atlas that Magill defined the basis of her artistic foundation, her ability to accurately draw what she observes. Magill started at an early age studying at the foot of several great watercolorists. She rarely deviated from this medium. This focus, almost her entire life on watercolor, has allowed Magill to hone her skills to a level comparable to the great British watercolorists of the late 19th century.

This tradition of painting which fuses the best of tightly rendered detail with even soft washes can only be mastered with years of practice and experience. But Magill's paintings are more than mastered technique; they are a vision of bringing prominence to the ordinary. She sees the precious transient nature of the human experience and carefully composes, and captures scenes that many of us would not have noticed.

Magill's many years of studying rural and coastal Americana, have allowed her to visually isolate similar transient beauty wherever she travels. Magill now offers a body of work which bridges two continents, but yet retains the same concerns for wildlife, architecture, and the fleeting artifacts of days gone by. Whether she paints an old truck or a pagoda, Magill exhibits an attention to detail, which immortalizes the mundane.

We can only hope that Reflections of Kyushu by Terry Magill encourages a young aspiring artist or two to spend the years it takes to hone the skills of drawing that is the basis for all great art.

Lorenzo DeSantis
Bodega Landmark Gallery
Bodega, California
April, 2005