Monday, July 25, 2011

Stormy skies

I'm experimenting with granulation medium. My first few attempts didn't work out at all, and then I read that you have to keep disturbing the paint until it dries, otherwise, the watercolour will do what it does best - revert to an even wash. I'm still not convinced, to be honest. I get the feeling I would obtain a similar effect with just water. But what subject is better suited to granulation medium than stormy skies? So, I found a picture on the web, I mixed some ultramarine, winsor red, winsor violet and winsor yellow into a nice rich grey and manipulated the paint until it looked right. It took a couple of tries, but I like the result. In the first one, my mix is more purple, and I painted the ground a shade of orange that I think works OK. In the second one, I added more yellow and blue to the grey, and contrasted it with a vibrant vanadium yellow field.

They are big stormy skies all right, but I feel something is missing, a sense of scale maybe. I'm thinking of adding a collage element, in the shape of an American Mid-West red barn perhaps. I haven't actually glued anything to the paper yet. I'll have to think about that one for a little while


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