Must We Always Start with White Paper? - FINISHED

NEW WORKS FROM THE STUDIO OF ART BY WENDY

Fuchsias in the Sunshine - 16 x 20  - Watercolour

Starting with Colour can be freeing, No White Space!!

My fuchsias were painted on a prepared paper washed with a few colours.  (See my  last post Must We Always Start With White Paper)  As you can see I just painted over the background, using the colours of the wash to make my painting.  Life still had a few challenges for me though: 

1.  I still needed a value plan: I found that the lower section was too light and so I needed to put frisket on the stamens and pour a second wash to darken it. Lots of fun keeping it away from my other area!!

2,  Some of the background became too precious:  I really fell in love with the lovely splashes of white from the coarse salt I put on the first pour.  I really had to be firm with myself and cover some of them up. It was for the best but it did hurt a bit!! 

I was really pleased with the final results, I hope you enjoy it as well.  

Have fun with your picture! Enjoy the challenges!!

The Fuchsias in the Sunshine are up and running, they are now on display for my show May 1-3,  at GardenWorks at Manderville, Burnaby.  This is a very exciting event, my artist partner, Audrey and I will be the featured artists.  We have a full selection of new works to show off.  We are also running a workshop Friday, May 2, 6:30-8:30pm on Travel Journaling.  It is $25 (Pre-registration Required).  We have some great ideas to put excitement in your Journaling and Manderville is kicking in some free refreshments and appies to make it a real fun Art Party!!  A portion of  our Art Sales and Workshop Fees will be going to the Alzheimer's Society of British Columbia.  

Have a great Art-filled Day, 

Wendy

Must We Always Start With White Paper??

NEW WORKS FROM THE STUDIO OF ART BY WENDY

Fuchsias in the Sunshine - Work In Progress

White paper as a starting point can often bring any artist to a stand still.  All that white space!!  I like to change things up a bit by covering all that 'white' with an interesting pour of colour.  For my Fuchsias, I first did a pouring of Aureolin, Permanent Rose and Indanthrene Blue.  I tried to keep them in a mid to low value range so that they would shine through for a background but also I could cover them with paint.  For fun I added some salt while the paper was still very wet.  That resulted in the interesting patterning in the lower right side moving up to the top left.

Once the paper was dry I turned it to where I felt there was a sense of weight on the bottom.  Then I drew my fuchsias and began to paint. I used the same colours for my palette but with much more intensity.  I am afraid I got so involved with the painting process I nearly forgot to take a picture for you.  From this picture you can get a sense of how dark the background is and yet my watercolours still cover it and make their own design.  The underlying colours do add a bit of richness and texture to the colour I put on top.  Things are going well with the picture and I am very excited.

Try a coloured background, don't worry about where it is going, just go ahead and draw and paint your picture on top.

Have fun and let me know how it works for you.  My picture will hopefully be ready in a few days.