Today’s watercolor experiment began with a swath of opera rose pigment that I painted with a 3″ hake brush.  I thought about yesterday’s theme: lungs, air and cancer.  The pinkish color opera rose, plus the medical them inspired an idea of somehow representing fluids of the body. I used English yellow and phthalo blue to paint stripes on either side of the opera rose patch.

I wanted to preserve these original colors, so I applied latex masking fluid to span all three color strips. After the latex dried, I glazed the exposed area with English yellow. I removed part of the mask and painted Payne’s gray in the resulting semi-circular channels. Cadmium red colored part of the central area of the circle.

When all the painting was completed, I used a screwdriver to deface the colors, ripping the paper through all the painted zones. I healed the torn area with a metallic silver pigment.

Abstract 071516
12″x9″ 140# Cold Pressed Block

I felt a flash of anger as I drew the screwdriver across the paper. I’m not quite sure why.