Today’s watercolor experiment:

I began with soaking wet paper, streaking permanent mauve across its width. I left room at the top for another color. I chose Prussian blue, since I wanted  a color close to mauve, on the color wheel.  As they mingled, I dropped on some clear water. I love when the water chases the pigment away when I drip it into a solid area of color. The paper has to have a little bit of sheen; not soaking wet or too dry. I’m still learning to know just how to tell when the paper contains the right amount of moisture to preserve the intricate patterns made by the spread of the water against the pigment.

I used aureolin yellow to fill in around the edges of the mauve areas. Since yellow is the complement of purple, I was hoping for maximal contrast. My reasoning was the same for placing the cadmium orange adjacent to the blue.

Finally, I dripped aureolin in the same place I placed the water, in several places, to create a bull’s-eye effect.

Comment:

I like playing with the wetness of the paper. I must continue to practice to judge when it is the right time to place a drop of pigment or water.

Today’s abstract is formless, as the title of this post implies. I displayed it, as shown above, upside down from the way I painted it. I like it better that way.