Showing posts with label Surge. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Surge. Show all posts

Monday, December 7, 2009

Wet on Wet Watercolor Painting

Have you ever tried to paint on a wet surface with watery color. You need to keep a couple of steps ahead with your plan and get it all on before the painting dries. One can add a couple of drops of glycerin to the water to slow the drying. It is difficult to judge the intensity of the color and, in general, it dries at a much lighter value than it appears at first. This is my attempt at a 15-20min wet on wet watercolor. The second one was done with more intense color because of the experience with the first.


This one took even less time, and I was able to save the whites. It is uneven with the intensities but the water reflections are somewhat forgiving. An artist I know that is successful with this technique uses only Lanaquerelle watercolor paper. This is more blotter-like and gives soft edges to everything.
I think that I will need a lot of trials to get one of these wet-on-wet paintings to my satisfaction. In the meantime, I will stay with washes and dry into wet.