Today’s piece highlighted some of the disadvantages of working with very wet washes, especially if you aren’t careful to make sure the edge of your tape is sealed down properly. And since it takes longer for the paper to dry under the paint, something like this will happen :
Flow III (Day 14) – WIP #2
The painting itself isn’t damaged, just the edge that I leave for the tape. And you can see where the color has bled under the edges of the tape. In fact, when I’m either really working an area of the paper or the water has pooled there because of the warping, I get spots like this on the back of the page:
Flow III (Day 14) – WIP #1
It doesn’t harm the piece at all, just gives an idea of just how wet my washes can be. Still, the piece itself turned out very interesting to me. I’ve named this series “Flow” based on how I work the paint in relation to the water. Now, since I work with watercolors, I’m sure someone is saying that previous sentence makes no sense, but it does. I use the water not just as part of the paint, but as a component of the painting itself. I add it, spray it on, use it to manipulate the color even further. In this case, I sprayed water onto a background and then daubed the paint into those droplets, letting them blend and flow together as the water decided. It makes an interesting effect, IMO and I love the final colors.
Day 14 – “Flow III”
Watercolor on paper
4″ x 6″
Flow III | Watercolor on paper | 4″ x 6″ | 2015