Quiet Cove

I painted this picture last week.  The sky and cloud formation add drama to an otherwise quiet seascape.  The posts used for tying up boats go up through the painting to tie it together.  Each plane has a value change giving depth to the ocean.
I am very frustrated trying again to paint on clayboard (Aquaboard).  I have some remaining cradled boards in my studio.  They tempt me to try again painting a watercolor on the board and using the soft gel and varnish to complete a watercolor without glass.  The final watercolor with varnish and without glass is very appealing to me.  The problem has been to paint watercolor as it is supposed to be painted.  Graded washes and plain washes are very difficult on clayboard and not at all like on paper.  Any overlapping stroke usually will lift some of the original wash.  You can forget about mixing colors on the surface. For the past weeks I have experimented with approaches to this problem without success.  I have painted on paper and used really strong adhesive to attach the finished paper to core-foam or clayboard. The edges of the paper lift up with time.  Adhering unpainted paper to the board or core-foam first and then painting on it allowed the proper use of watercolor washes but again the same problem of paper edges coming away from the board.  I have not tried to adhere the painted paper with acrylic gel as recently proposed by some artists.  I will continue my trials as I like the varnished watercolor appearance and I like painting with watercolor. 

Painting on clayboard

Happy New Year. The weather got gloomy, damp and cold so I went to still life painting. Have not done this for so long, that I could get excited about it. This was done on aquaboard or the new clayboard for watercolor. It is different and I am not used to it. I like to paint with my paper almost vertical and that won't work with the board. Water practically runs off when painting wet. Laying it flat overcomes that issue. What I like about it is the brilliance of color. Now if I can keep that when I varnish, I will keep working at this.

This watercolor is done on aquabord. I have been trying this out because it allows framing without glass. There is a big difference between this system and paper, espcially if you are working wet into wet or just wet. The paint quickly sets up and glazing causes it to lighten or wipe off, somewhat like using Yupo. I have tried several boards now and have yet to feel comfortable with the aquabord system.
The fog in this painting was created by running water through a previously applied wash that was still wet. It is difficult to create soft edges. It is my feeling that this system only works with dry brush painting. If you cannot glaze then you might has well be painting with acrylics or oil. The magic of transparent watercolor painting is lost.