Since my initial experimentations with salt and watercolor, I’ve spent hours watching tutorial videos on different techniques and materials one can use with watercolors, and I’ve gone to art supply and hardware stores multiple times in the last five days (and I don’t like running errands, folks). It’s been a bit of an obsessed week, with some very mixed results and a lot of learning. So, below are some of the more palatable experiments.
My boyfriend’s mother, BJ, was nice enough to bestow upon me some coldpress watercolor paper, which has a much greater texture than the cheapo paper I bought before, so that was a new factor as well.
Techniques used below: masking fluid, drops of alcohol, and blooming (dipping a paint laden brush onto a wet wash).
I learned here that using alcohol with a super wet wash can lead to dirty looking spots, so beware:
On this experiment I tried using bleach for the first time (add five drops of bleach into a cup of water, mix, then wash your paper and add paint). The video I saw on using bleach showed it creating these very cool spidery blossoms, but I did NOT have success in recreating that look below. I think it may have been that the coldpress paper’s texture inhibited the flow of water and pigment. Also could have been the amount of bleach. Also, some artists say don’t use bleach because it could led to early deterioration of the paper (definitely not worried about that on the painting below), so something to keep in mind:
Below I used epsom salts to see if they react differently than the larger grained sea salts I used before (couldn’t really tell from this painting). Also used a bit of natural sponge, painting directly onto it and then stamping the paint over the dried background. I dig it:
I tried scratching into the paper on the experiment below, using the incredible nib and a needle. On the right side I also tried dropping some paint and then blowing it with a straw to create the tree shape. Love it:
Now we switch into the land of hotpress paper. This is the first time I’ve used hotpress and it’s the extreme opposite of the heavy textured paper above, as it has absolutely no texture at all. I also used bleach washes on all four of the following paintings, trying to figure out how to get that awesome spidery effect (still not sure I got it 100%).
Below, in addition to bleach blossoming I also did some alcohol drops:
Scattered epsom salts everywhere but the middle:
Epsom salts and blooming #2:
On the two paintings above the epsom salts created very strong and shiny crystal patterns, which I tried to show a close up of below. Not sure if this was a combination of the bleach with the salts or just the epsom salts themselves or if this is a good thing to do to paper:
Here I sprinkled baking soda and also played around with the straw technique (which doesn’t work well on a wet wash, as the paint just diffuses):
Big take away lessons: paper texture MATTERS, and if you use a heavily textured paper certain techniques can be inhibited or less vibrant. No texture on your paper and water spreads like crazy and I also saw a lot more graininess, but that could be because of the bleach (further experiments needed!). Also, seemingly simple techniques seen on a youtube video are not necessarily easily replicated.
Too Much Information: I cut the skin under my nail while removing some tape from the edge of my painting, so I literally BLED for my art this week. We’re hardcore around here…
Compulsive Creation 