It is interesting to me how expansive the Bombay Blue is. It just sprints across the wet paper, whereas the Higgins is much more contained & at times hydrophobic. These painting remind me of clouds or brick walls & I am pleased with that dichotomy. Happy Monday Y'all! 

Finally an image I am satisfied with. After a week of experimenting with the Dr. Ph. Martin paint I finally had a breakthrough, thanks to something my friend Lydia Makepeace said about how she uses the paint: just use the dropper to apply the pigment directly to wet paper. Ah, the clouds parted & the heavens opened! Such a better working method for this paint. Huge thanks to Lydia for the insight! I persevered with this paint, because the colors are so vibrant & different, than my favorite Winsor & Newton's. I am excited to see where things go now. Happy Tuesday Y'all! 

I wanted to explore these paintings again so I painted another. It has been a few months & so the technique with which I approached the first batch was not clear in my mind; hence the variations. Not as much contrast between the blues, much stronger presence of gold, & a lot of variation in line-width & overlap. As a printmaker I am familiar with working in a matrix, so even though I have been choosing to use watercolor for the greater part of a year, it is still the method with which I attack the work: stripes, salt, sumi-e, layer, wait. Happy Wednesday Y'all! 

I find this image find it intriguing, but don't know if it is a case of being in the monkey house too long. If it were printed on fabric I would think it is a weird snakeskin & the salt really left it's shape on a lot of the image rather than pulling & pushing the pigment. Regardless I still find enough interest in the piece to share it with y'all. What will you experiment with this week? Be Bold! Happy Monday Y'all! 
Materials:
Payne's Grey
Hooker Green
Arches Hot Press
Morton's Kosher Salt
Modified Triangle Brush

Yesterday I tried this technique on a much larger sheet of paper: 18"x24". The advantage in that is when viewing you are able to enter the piece completely. You eye isn't constantly hitting an edge & there is enough detail to keep you engaged. 
Arches Hot Press 140lb.  18"x24", Winsor & Newton Payne's Grey, Morton's Kosher Salt, American Painter Round 1 & Sumi Gold