I began with planes of blues and iron oxide red, with an earth tone swirld thrown in for good measure. I didn’t like the way these rectangles lay on the paper. I over painted them, beginning with the blues, and dripped drops of the iron oxide as they were still wet.

I painted over the remaining pale earth tone rectangle with a yellow gouache. I used red gouache to paint the border between the diagonal blue stripe and the variegated red iron/blue combination.

Yellow and Red on Variegated Background
12″x9″ 140# Cold Pressed Watercolor Block

Hans Hofmann frequently used pure colors to give impressions of distance. Part of his technique called ‘push/pull‘ used contrast between pure colors of overlapping shapes to convey depth and foreground.