Inspire me Thursday - Open Studio

My studio...well, it's my kitchen counter. I do have a drawing table, but at the moment it is the home of the scanner and misc. other items.

We (Myself, my husband Darrin, Erica & Neal) live in a house that is just under 700 sq. ft. It is cozy, to say the least. So I paint where I can, when I can.

I thought it would be fun, since it's Sunday and I have the time, to take some pictures of what I do and how I do it. I totally 'winged' this painting. I just decided to do a weird painting of whatever and try to cover the little 4x6 piece of watercolor paper I had. For this I used Dr. P.H. Martin's Concentrated Watercolor. I love this stuff, the colors are incredible...problem is, it's not AT ALL lightfast and is really only good for something you are going to scan or reproduce. I learned this the hard way. I gave my original 'gecko' paintings to a couple of close friends, told them not to hang them near a window. Well, they hung them in a room next to a window and within a couple months the paintings where virtually gone. I'm just glad I scanned them first.

I love the randomness of watercolor. But, I like to have control at the same time. So I 'cage' the watercolor in specified area and then let it do it's thing. First, I specify the space and put down a nice wet wash.


Then I drop a darker concentration of the same color into the wet space. These watercolors are extremely vibrant, one little vial lasts a very long time.

Then I drop in some of a different color...here I added Ultra Blue to Jungle Green. (Green? Not really...it's more of a turquoise)


Then I drop in straight water and let it spread. Sometimes I drop some rock salt on there for texture but I didn't use it this time.


So...I continue to add more shapes, and do the same things to them. I added different colored shapes, dropping the next color of the spectrum into them...etc. (The outside swirls I started with Ultra blue and dropped Violet into them...then started with Violet and added Cyclamen to that...and so on)

Until, I had covered the whole piece of paper with shapes...

Then, I got out the goauche. I used only white gouche inside the shapes to start. The gouache soaks up so much of the watercolor that there really is no point in adding any other color.

Later I went in and added some other details with different colors of gouache. And ...There you have it. My finished crazy painting!

I don't think it will make it into the Louvre, but it was fun and I enjoyed taking the pictures along the way!

"Crazy Sunday Painting"

As Scarecrow would say..."Make of it what you will!"

Have a great week everyone. =)