Ruining A Watercolor and Reflecting on Your Art, Etc.

Empty
Acrylic on Canvas
22 x 28 in/56 x 71 cm

Hi-
This is a TTO blog today--TTO stands for This, That and the Other. So, it will be a little bit of all of those. Sometimes that’s all Mondays are good for…

First, I discovered that this blog is ranked no. 4 on the list when you Google: new art blog – go ahead, Google new art blog and see for yourself. I don’t consider the blog all that new since I’ve been blogging for almost two years now, but whatever, it’s nice to be appreciated.

I also re-discovered what happens when you use less than quality watercolor paper. Since I had a pad of 120# watercolor paper on hand I thought I’d use it for some quick and informal watercolors. I was going to paint a beach scene with waves breaking on the shore.

I applied masking fluid/frisket (or whatever you may call it) to the whitewater waves and foam to save them as white when I painted the water blue. OK, so far so good; I painted the sky with blue washes, the sand with separate washes of yellow, red, then blue, and finally used a couple of pthalo blue washes for the water. When I went to remove the masking fluid, it was stuck to the top layer of the paper. The paper then peeled completely off, ruining the whole thing. Dang!

I won’t name the brand of watercolor paper that peeled, but you should be using the best quality 300# paper you can afford.

I completed my acrylic, titled Empty, which is today’s image. Other than that and the above-mentioned watercolor, I’ve dawdled the last few days thinking about which painting to work on next.

I can’t decide on whether it should be a watercolor or another acrylic although I’m leaning toward acrylic or what the motif should be. I’m currently looking through some personal reference photos of landscapes for possibilities.

As I mentioned in the last blog, I finished the book on Delacroix, and so I picked up another book on Camille Pissarro, which has the most paintings of his that I have seen in any one book. I’ll tell you about it later on when I’m finished.

Finally, my art critique class is out for the summer. I’ll miss the weekly meetings and camaraderie of other artists, but we all need a break frankly. It will do me good to be alone with my own art for a few months, if nothing else, to see if I’m going in the right direction, for me anyway.

Or is it time to seek a new art path? Summertime is good for that kind of reflection. What about you?

Until next blog…