Yesterday’s watercolor experiment was about glazing and blending of colors. Liz and Chez liked it the way it was, and I like it for what it is as well. I will keep it as is for now. As a rule, it is good to ‘live with’ a painting for a while before deciding how to proceed. Perhaps I will be inspired to add, take away or modify it in other ways, or just leave it be.

Today’s experiment:

I’ve been painting a lot with greens and blues and thought that I might try something different. Today I used complements of the colors I used yesterday, with the same overall structure.

At the bottom of the picture plane, I started out with one of the reds that was left over on my palette (sorry Liz, but I can’t recall its name). On the upper half of the picture, I used cadmium orange as a wash. I thought that Permanent Mauve (Dailer Rowney) would be a good color to add to the red area in the middle of the paper on the left hand side. However, as I added it on the wet paper, it turned into a brownish tint. I tilted the paper and forced it to leak to the right side: a horizon line of sorts.

I overlaid different reds on the bottom part (after thorough drying), including Winsor red. After drying once more, I used Quinacridone Red (Utrecht) as a wash on the lower (red) area. I used Nickel Quinacridone Gold (M. Graham) as a wash for the lower orange part, and lemon yellow to wash the upper orange area.

I chose Cadmium Red (Winsor Newton) as the red that I wanted to come to the foreground on the left side of the paper. I painted it on the dry paper, wetting it to soften edges. After drying I painted lemon yellow around the edges, which you might notice as lighter areas among the dark reds, below.

I added neutral tint, the dark blotches, to the red field on the left side. The dark spots diffused in the way that I expected.  My final wash was lemon yellow.

Another Background
9″x12″ 140# Cold Pressed Watercolor Block

As with yesterday’s background watercolor, I don’t quite know what I’m going to do with this one.

I use a watercolor block on which to paint. A  block is a stack of watercolor paper, all four sides of which are glued together. This lets me paint without fear of the paper buckling if it gets saturated with water. But, in order to paint another painting, I would have to remove the top piece. Fortunately, I recently purchase several blocks at a 1 cent sale, so I can just use them. Today’s background and yesterday’s are safe…. for now.