Today’s watercolor experiment:

My experiments over the past few days have covered pairs of complementary colors (From a Magazine, Imaginary Forest, Next Complement Please). Yesterday I combined all, in an abstract study, the design of which just popped into my mind (All Together Now).

Today’s study is less about painting and more a continuation of yesterday’s design.

I usually have vivid dreams. They are sometimes a source of laugh-out-loud entertainment, other times they can be quite frightening and upsetting. For a period of several years I used to wake up and write down my dreams. On a couple of occasions, upon waking up for the day, anxious to read the dream that I had already forgotten, I was stunned to find a blank page where I had scrawled furiously just hours before. It didn’t take me long to figure out that I should not write upside down. I remedied the situation by purchasing a space pen, one that could write in zero Gs.  Many of my wondrous unconscious musings lost their luster when I re-read them, however some still offer me insight about myself. In fact, I still have dreams that follow patterns that were established when I was young.

Process:

I don’t have a lot to say about the mechanics of creating today’s composition. I used a ultramarine blue (as blues go, it is on the warmish side) to represent the water element. Cadmium red light represents heat of the head figure resting on the pillow. The turquoise/cerulean blue of the hand contrasts with the head and cools it.  The permanent mauve background contrasts with the yellow ochre of the pillow to push it into the foreground.

Sleep
9″x12″140# Cold Pressed Watercolor Block

Comment:

Although the idea of this composition was more important to me than the painting, I like both quite a bit. I seemed to have learned my lesson about complementary colors: the yellow/purple contrast between the pillow and the background; the red, feverish head contrasting with the greenish blue of the cooling hand.

I would like to continue this series about sleep. I hope I will have an idea when I sit down and look at my blank watercolor paper tomorrow.