Today’s watercolor experiment: In my recent watercolor experiments (Autumn Sky, Discontinuous Bird of Paradise, Amorphia), I wet the paper and painted fields of color. I dripped clear water into these fields and watched as it chased the color away leaving a starburst of white. Today I performed the inverse of this procedure. I wet the […]
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 […]
Today’s watercolor experiment: I tried out some of my new-found nibs today. I used one that looked like a paint brush, It was probably 3/8” wide with three tines, and the insides looked like a leaf spring. I didn’t know if it would work at all. The first stroke petered out within a couple of […]
Today’s watercolor experiment: For something completely different, I started my watercolor with pen and ink. I had a rude surprise when I opened the box where I stored my dip pens, I found that most of my inks had dried up, inside the bottles. I hadn’t used them in a really long time! Some calligraphy […]
Today’s watercolor experiment: I have really been enjoying the Moonglow pigment, manufactured by Daniel Smith. Previous posts using this pigment include: Discontinuous Bird of Paradise, Concentric and Granulation. Its component pigments include ultramarine blue (PB29), Anthraquinoid Red (PR177) and Viridian green (PG18). As one might surmise, a mixture of the primary colors would tend to result in a […]
Today’s watercolor experiment: I began today with an unsatisfactory color wash of my paper. Somehow the strokes with my wide brush just didn’t do it. Maybe it was the colors: cerulean blue, cadmium red light and aureolin yellow. I blotted up as much as I could, hair-driered it and started over. I do enjoy the granular Moonglow pigment […]
Today’s watercolor experiment: I’m still working with granular watercolor pigments and their relationship with more mobile pigments. Beginning with Van Dyke brown: I wet the perimeter of the paper and a more-or-less circular ring inside it before I painted the corners with Van Dyke brown. In yesterday’s painting I discovered that Moonglow, a grainy, bi-colored […]
Today’s watercolor experiment: Today’s study is a continuation of yesterday’s look at granulated watercolor pigments. Wet on dry: As opposed to yesterday, I applied the watercolors to dry paper. I used Van Dyke brown which merged seamlessly with the Moonglow, a specialized pigment from Daniel Smith. The latter color separates into red and purple as […]
Today, I am shying away from ‘self expression’, having been stung by Annie Dillard’s description of those who consider ‘art’ as a way to understand one’s self: “You may hold the popular view that art is self expression, or a way of understanding the self – in which case the artist need do nothing more than […]
It started with writing I found The Norton Sampler (Third Edition) from 1985, a collection of essays about writing, at my local library. It was in the section where they have books for sale. I am interested in improving my writing, so I bought it. This volume included additional material to explain the different types […]
