Mas Flores

Today’s post is batch of flowers done in a Hahnemuhle Watercolor Book instead of the sketchbook for yesterday’s post. Today I am using a “real” watercolor sketchbook that has watercolor paper in it. I could work with a lot more water without getting blooms or having the paper buckle as in the other book.

I also used tube paints that were on my palette, but found that the paint, having been there for awhile, was very dry. It was difficult to pick up paint in large quantities – just like on the pan paints. To fix this, I put several drops of water on each color and let it sit for awhile – maybe 10 minutes. Misting water on doesn’t suffice – I needed a small flood!

One thing I have done here is to focus on negative painting as well as carrying a plane of color with varying colors along the page. I tried to work light to dark, but other times I worked around the light areas to give them shape. All this is play, experimentation, just doing and then observing, thinking about what I did and what I want to do.

Outcome? Thoughts? A few of my own:

• quit dabbing!
• use really wet, saturated paint
• use paint more directly without glazing
• values

None of these are any good. They show my painting faults to a glaring degree. However, as practice, it will do very well.

Well, gotta run!