After a grueling drive, we’re back home. Before we left Burbank, I designed a watercolor sketch that began with a clear water squiggle. At one end, I infused the same blue color that Will, my three-year-old grandson, used in some of his paintings (see Will’s First Masterpiece of the Day, It’s About Process, My Favorite). At the other end I dropped in some quinacridone nickel (a yellow pigment), and tilted the paper until they merged. This didn’t create a dramatic effect, so I added more blue adjacent to the yellow. Again, I didn’t get the color I once produced with quinacridone nickel and a deeper blue (cobalt). As a final touch to the curved figure, I painted red on either side of its trailing end.

At this point, I used some of William’s techniques: I loaded a bristle brush with pigment and pushed it around the paper, dipping the brush in water (marveling at the its change from colorless to colorful) and scrubbing the brush on the paper once more. I did this with red at the bottom and blue and yellow at the top.

Composition, After William
12″x9″ 140# Cold Pressed Watercolor Block

I like the portions of this composition in which I imitated Will’s brushwork better than the beginning figure of my own design.