"illumination" (draft 1)

                             (draft 1)


The image today is the beginning of a new work that has begun with watercolors. There are few mediums that can offer the luminous light effects that watercolor can. Glass is one other such medium, but it is not as portable or cost effective as watercolor. The quote will come later.

I woke up today with my mind on watercolor since there is an upcoming class coming to my studio. Even though I am not teaching the class, my desire is to see all of the luminous effects that will appear from this class.

So I decided to hunt down a quarter sheet of 140 lb. HP and do a bit of mono printing. Glass is undoubtedly the best surface for mono printing techniques so I squeezed out a small bit (1/8 tsp...or less) of Viridian Winsor Newton color onto the glass. I then sprayed a good amount of water and mixed the color and water thoroughly with my fingers (wearing gloves). I gave the paper a quick spray of water, but not over the entire sheet and then laid that paper down into the color and lifted it off...followed by drying with a hair dryer.

This same technique was repeated with Cerulean Bl.(WN brand), but not printed over the entire sheet. After drying, the technique was repeated again with Titanate Yellow (Maimeiri Brand) and then dried and cropped.

The word "illumination" was then written gesturally with a pencil. What I like is the combination of white paper showing...soft and hard edges....and especially the light effect that happens when watercolor is not overworked. This method prevents overworking since there is no brush work involved. The danger of watercolor is overworking or having a totally "dry brushed" technique. Watercolors are best created with water. (imagine that!)

Of course this is totally abstract with no representational image, but it does set the stage for the next step. In my case, the next step will probably be the addition of gesso to introduce more shapes, but leave the best of the luminous watercolor effect untouched. And there you have it...just a few more things to think about.