Today (meaning yesterday – I write my posts the day before and post schedule for 12 midnight) we drove to Burbank. It is a 5 – 6 hour drive, but a straight shot down Interstate 5 (called ‘The 5’ by locals). In anticipation of this occasion, I painted my rendition of back pain. Actually, I […]
Today’s watercolor experiment: I had several different ideas for today’s study. Perhaps ‘false starts’ would be a better way to characterize the beginning of this composition. First idea: Upon close inspection of some of the ‘christmas trees’ in yesterday’s post, I was struck by the vermilion-inked razor cuts surrounded by the peacock blue that represented the tree branches. The […]
Today’s watercolor experiment: Surface preparation: I used my straight razor today. Not on my face, on my watercolor paper. I used the paper as a strop, dragging it back and forth with the sharp end dragging. There was no chance of cutting the surface if I did it right. I did cut the paper with […]
Today’s watercolor experiment: Stage 1: I like the way yellow disperses over the paper. I started today’s study with a lemon yellow wash, followed by an application of several greens in the center of the paper with one of my wide brushes. Prussian blue graces the right edge and top of the frame. As an […]
Today’s watercolor experiment: I have always wanted to pay more attention to the Terre Verte pigment. Thus far I have found it to be…. um… to put it kindly…. anemic. No matter how much Terre Verte I put on my brush, it seemed to disappear as soon as I applied it to the paper. Today would […]
Today’s watercolor experiment: I like texture. The other day I added texture by mechanical means: my safety razor. I thought I could give my rough-textured paper a clean shave, but the edge just kept skipping around, creating parallel gouges. Today I started my study using a dry brush. I’m back to my old habit of arced […]
Today’s watercolor study: I used the same earth-tone schema as yesterday. It was fun to scrape up the rough-surfaced paper to see what would happen when I painted it. But today I just used cold pressed paper without making any changes to the surface. I started with dry paper and drew my Van Dyke brown-laden […]
Today’s watercolor experiment: I don’t know when the idea occurred to me. It was some time after I started using the rough-surfaced watercolor block. I thought, “Wouldn’t it be great to have a surface that was both rough and smooth in places?” I probably thought of this while I was shaving. I use an old fashioned […]
Did you ever have a time when you couldn’t identify a feeling? With me, sometimes it manifests itself in being crabby to everyone. When I do have an unidentifiable feeling, I try to reason it out. I ask myself, “When was the last time you ate?” or “Did you get enough sleep last night?” Depending on […]
Today’s watercolor experiment: My two previous foray’s into earth-tone paintings were a bit drab and monotonous; I’m not even going to provide links to them. If you really want to see them they both were posted within the past couple of days. Today, I started with my usual soaked paper and laid down some of the […]
