Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Trial And Error

'Magnolia'  (watercolors 11x14") done about ten years ago when I was still learning to handle paint, was a breakthrough for me.  Magnificent magnolias were in bloom in a friend's garden, and  I had attempted to paint one blossom. I was not at all pleased with  the results.  In my frustration and disappointment, I took the painting to the bathtub,  washed the colors out and let the sheet dry. When it was a barely wet to the touch, I went over part of the painting wet on wet and added back the colors slowly adding details only to the flower and nothing else. I left the lower right corner pretty much alone except for splattering some paint on it. After all these years, I still struggle to leave part of white of the  paper alone, and often have to resort to washing the paints off  to get the desired effect. I guess therefore my technique is paint, wash, and paint again :)

I have been asked about how I painted the textures and 'underwater look' in my earlier post 'Painted Pebbles.'  After drawing the rocks, I rubbed lightly a white crayon on parts of the rocks  and rest of the drawing. The wax in the crayon resists watercolors and the white shows through.  For algae, I dipped a dry sponge in various colors and tapped it on some of the rocks. I used a toothbrush to splatter colors around. One fun technique was to transfer pictures using gesso which is explained here very clearly.  I cut a small piece of sunday color comics and used regular gesso (matte) for that.  Hope this is helpful. 

6 comments:

Carmen said...

Hi. I am a Virginia Beach area blogger, and I'm hosting a get together for other area bloggers. You came up in a web search, and I'd love to have you attend the event. No, I'm not a spammer and I'm not trying to sell you anything. You can contact me at momtothescreamingmasses@gmail.com if you are interested - it's a park picnic for the entire family and should be lots of fun.

thiliMy said...

an old favorite!

milindmulick said...

loved your art,thanks for your nice comments regulerly on my blog..

Meera Rao said...

Thank you Milind -- I have always admired your work and am happy you enjoyed the visit to my blog :)

Kripa said...

WOW! I didn't know that the painting in my home had so much of a history!I appreciate the painting more now :)

Meera Rao said...

Thanks Kripa! Thats the thing about art - every piece ends up having a history and piece of me:)

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...