Watercolor painting has undergone a revolution in recent decades. Once the stuff of faint, delicate washes and flat photographic detail, watercolor has become a medium of vibrant shades and palpable textures. This is somewhat due to a plethora of new paint colors by many manufacturers plus products which add granulation, impasto, and crackles to the paints—and the liberating relaxation of what is acceptable: including the use of salt, cling film, and tools for scraping. (The most commonly used scraping tool seems to be a defunct credit card.)
I am grateful for the revolution. As exquisite as they may be in the hands of a pro, those faint and delicate washes with photographic detail have never appealed to this amateur. Much as I respect the age-old skill of the traditional watercolorist, I do not want “faint and delicate” on the walls of my home! And I would not be true to myself if faint and delicate were my only options to paint.
Along with the watercolor revolution has come a fondness for the diffusion which occurs when wet paint is applied alongside semi-wet: those beautiful “cauliflowers” and “blooms” such as you see in the upper right corner of the above rendering. Once considered to be terrible, these blooms are now cherished by many artists. Sometimes the blooms occur accidentally, but often they are intentional. They can also be achieved by spraying water on semi-wet paint. Actually I think that’s how I got the one pictured above.
I am going batty over texture. The ethereal white streaks just left of center were made by wisping a layer of white gouache over paint which was dried under cling film. The weird trees or whatever along the background were salted. Table salt is okay, but since I love most everything Jewish I prefer Kosher salt. The wildish plantings springing up on the right were done with a new kid on my art block—Indian ink. And of course the green area was cling filmed while drying. Not featured in this example are watercolor crayons and water soluble ink pencils which I frequently apply for texture. And a great way to create speckles is to sprinkle sand-papered shavings from the end of a water soluble colored pencil, into wet paint. Too much fun!
Up until now, all of my paintings have been done on either Arches 140# cold press (as above) or slippery YUPO paper. I have held off ordering rough textured paper due to the accelerated price thereof—feeling that I should wait until I have a reasonable idea of what I am doing with my paints.
Well, I’ve been sloshing around in the colors for eight years now and recently I decided it was time to move on. I ordered one sheet of Arches 140# rough surface, to see if I would like it. Today I began to work on that first sheet. Ha! It was love at first brush stroke. The rough texture causes far more irregularities with its crevasses and gullies, than one can possibly achieve on other papers. So I just ordered three more sheets. The sheets are 22″ x 30″. I get a lot of paintings out of the big sheets, and these will go along way toward making our Wisconsin winter more pleasant.
Also, I really took a plunge, and ordered one sheet of 300# cold press. Again, a price leap. A sheet of 300# rough texture paper would have been even more pricey. One step at a time. The 300# papers do not buckle, no matter how wet they are. So there is no need to dampen the back of a 300# painting and weight it down between paper towels and plastic mats laden with my huge atlas.
Little by little I am getting spoiled. But I’m into painting for the long haul. As long as the Lord keeps me on earth I hope to dink around with my brushes and explosions of color and texture! 🙂
Margaret L. Been, December 2014
The Messy Palette . . . 