Watercolor is a challenge, but I seem to finally be able to think about what I want to focus on, and work to meet and succeed, in varying degrees, my goal. Here, it is wet-in-wet painting. In watercolor this means working with very wet paint – a lot of pigment and a lot of water. This is not easy to control because you sort of have to know your paper and your paint and how wet or damp or dry the whole thing is.
For the sky, I wet the paper first and let it settle into the paper for a few minutes. Then, using a mix of mostly ultramarine blue and burnt sienna, I created a grey by adding a lot of water to my colors. I dropped the paint onto the paper and let it bleed into the water. As the paper dried, I made a stronger mixture of the grey – meaning darker – and dropped that into the already painted surface. With a bit of toweling I blotted up some of the paint to lighten areas as well as to give a shape to the clouds.
After that, I did the middle and foregrounds. Everything was done with damp paper and watery paint. No dry brush at all, just working with different degrees of wetness and color intensity.
Goals accomplished, I don’t think of this as a good painting but a good exercise.
Watercolor, Arches Rough 140# paper, 10×14.
Ink, Yarn & Beer 