Today’s warmup exercise:

I had fun today and tried some new things.  The idea of the exercise was to discover different ways to manipulate paint once it has been applied to the paper.

I started each of my four panels by painting them with neutral tint. this is a grayish brown pigment. I practiced the same steps in each square of my chart. If one were to examine each sketch, one might notice the effect of each step, proceeding clockwise from the right edge.

First: after application of pigment, blotting pigment with a paper towel;

Second: using a dry brush to remove pigment from the wet surface;

Third: using a knife edge to scrape pigment from the wet paper;

Fourth: spraying clean water to clear away pigment;

Fifth: using a clean paper towel to rub away pigment from the nearly dry paper.

After the paper dried, I applied two parallel strips of Magic Tape (TM) separated by a narrow space. One can see this tape in the first panel. I brushed water onto the small strip of paper and removed pigment with a dry paper towel. I had my doubts, but this worked very well.

The remaining paint removal techniques involved scraping with knives, razors and screwdrivers to reveal the white of the paper. In some cases, removal of the tape brought the paper along with it. A blow drier helps to release the tape without ripping the underlying paper.

Paint Removal

Alas, my schedule today included working retail on Black Friday, so my watercolor experiment based on this warmup exercise isn’t quite ready. Will try to complete this for tomorrow’s post.