I am totally into swampy areas. There is little water where I live; an occasional creek to enjoy, but rain is not a common occurrence. So, I want watery stuff, mucky mud and mist to paint.
DOF still presents a problem.
Arches 140# CP; hake brush for the most part.
Summer, fog, early morning rising mist. One color blends into another, overlapping, blurring together. How to express this?
Gouache does not readily lend itself to the color movement as does watercolor. In watercolor, you can discharge one color into another, and the wicking action of water and paper do the work for you. Here, I thought a lot about how to blend and merge colors to create that soft effect of fog. In the end, for this painting, I decided to use a narrow, flat brush with stiff bristles and scumble all the colors together.
Rather a brighter painting than I anticipated, but I think it does express the rising fog and early morning sky fairly well.
7×10 Arches hot press paper.
Today promises to be frying hot – 91F or more. The house is already closed up to keep it cool – thank goodness for modern insulation! – so we don’t have to use the air conditioning. I took this image not too long ago on a considerably cooler day, and that is what I want to think about rather than suffocating heat! The plus side of the heat is flowers love it and as it is too hot and bright to go outside for strenuous activities, it is a perfect day to do things around the house, like sewing and such. Domestic life suffers in the summer around here.
What I see early in the morning while I drink my coffee and read the news!
Pastels just feel so natural. Get your fingers into the colors, dust, papers, blending. So tactile. I can’t tell you how many times I washed my hands here, but more than I would even with Covid-19 lurking around . . . . !
Ink, Yarn & Beer 