Jeffrey Simmons is one of 33 artists whose work was recently purchased by Seattle Public Utilities to be including in their Portable Works Collection. His watercolor painting Palindrome III is currently being exhibited as part of Atmospheric Weather, a two-part exhibition at the Seattle Municipal Tower showing the newest additions to Seattle Public Utilities’ collection. The first exhibition runs through August 13.
Simmons documented the creation of Palindrome III in this series of photos. The first image, which is at the bottom of the page, was taken just over a week into the four-week process. Before painting, Simmons made a preparatory drawing. The preparatory drawing for Palindrome III can’t be seen in the photo series because it is covered by panels; however, one can view an image of a preparatory drawing used for a painting similar to Palindrome III here.
Simmons utilized an intermediate tracing to locate each circle, which looked like this. In order to give some insight into how the actual painting process worked, Simmons created a time lapse video showing himself using his tabletop easel to create a watercolor painting similar to Palindrome III, which can be viewed here.
Atmospheric Weather is a two-part exhibition of the 48 new artworks in Seattle Public Utilities’ Portable Works Collection. The work of 33 different artists is featured, and the exhibition explores the ambience of weather conditions as a theme. The first exhibition opened on July 3 and will run through August 13. The second exhibition runs from August 15 – September 30. Both exhibitions take place on the 3rd floor of the Seattle Municipal Tower.
