Today’s watercolor experiment:

Blue was the inspiration for today’s experiment. I saw an exhibition at the Norton Simon Museum about the advent of the different blue pigments, beginning with Prussian blue. It included my favorites, cobalt blue and French ultramarine also. I wish they had a catalog of that show, because I was so enthralled with the works they included that I did not retain the history of blue.

I started with my fan brush loaded with cobalt blue. I painted a swirl. Then I used the dark indanthrone blue (not a pigment mentioned at the Norton Simon show), which I flanked by Prussian blue.

Since I love the combination of yellow ochre and blue, that was the next color I laid down. This in turn inspired a splotch of cadmium red light, which I merged together with the ocher on one side and terra rosa on the other.

Finally, I outlined the blue swirls with black, to set them apart from the background.

Burbank Abstract #4

I like the blues floating in the sea of red and yellow.