I have been nostalgic and laden with heavy thoughts lately, attending my mother’s 90th birthday party on February 9th and being at her side when she died on February 20. I included many of the details in my posts during that period and will not revisit them here.  I want to engage in some mindless artistic activity. Therefore I resume my watercolor experiments sans mindfulness.

Today’s watercolor experiment:

I began by wetting a 9″x12″ block of watercolor paper and used quinacridone nickel, a brownish yellow, on a wide brush, to lay down a kidney-shaped patch of color. While still wet, I stroked some cadmium red light in the middle and peacock blue around the edges – to the corners of the paper.

The blue merged with the nickel pigment to form a greenish tint. After drying, I covered the original cadmium red with a fresh application of the same. The dry paper prevented merging of pigments, and allowed the new red color to form its own layer. Since the cadmium pigments are not transparent, I did not expect any of the underlay to come through. Besides, the layer beneath the red was also red. I wanted the red strip to appear on top of the background, not merged with the adjacent yellow nickel color.

Mindless Abstract
9″x12″ 140# Cold Pressed Watercolor Block

Comment:

The only idea in my mind when I started this composition was to try a previous shape (from The Rest) on a wet background. No other idea invaded my mind. Not grief; not loss; not Mom; not anything. Hopefully the color combination as well as the shapes and merging of colors speak to the observer. As to what it says, I don’t know. Your guess is as good as mine.