Painting on Claybord - so much excitement!! So many questions!

As I was getting frustrated with the lack of interaction between my pigments (some granulating, some not, some quite heavy, some very light), or rather with the lack of predictability, despite me taking copious notes of what pigments I used, how much I waited before adding another colour, when I tilted the paper. I know that timing is everything, but I am not a patient watercolourist. I like to literally fling paint at the paper. What I want is something dynamic and rich and exciting. So I decided to try Claybord panels. And I had so much fun. My watercolour pigments were drifting, mingling, exploding - they completely had a mind of their own. And I loved it. Now of course, I have more questions - how to fix the watercolour, how to frame, what about the cost, particularly if you move to larger boards, etc.?

But it was worth it, just to know that some surfaces will give me the unpredictability I love, without going the full way to Yupo (although I have a few small sheets bought years ago that I never touched, so you never know!). Can I find a paper, or a ground that I can apply to paper, that will give me a similar effect. If any of you out there know the answer, or even think you know the answer, I'm happy to hear!

I worked on 30x30cm. Lots of spraying and flushing and tilting. A few close-ups also.

Materials

Week 4 of Creative Shift - processes and materials. Identified a few friction points in my process, and put together a map of the materials that embody some of the words I'm interested in.

More experimenting

Sometimes, it works out, sometimes it doesn't. All about timing. The one that worked here was on the back of a quarter sheet of Saunders Waterford Cold press paper. Love the granulation. And I wrote down the steps in my studio book. But Claude AI can actually give you a pretty accurate step-by-step account! Scary that! The other ones were an attempt at flushing water and pigment onto the not-so good postcard experiments. Still not so good! (Two Rivers paper, very thick and quite rough for cold press).

2 others looked interesting while still wet, with heavy white watercolour added in swirls on top. But they disappeared as the paper dried. Timing is everything!

zoomed in on the bit I like

Trying to reproduce that effect!

You know when a watercolour does exactly what you want, but you have no idea how you achieved that effect? Then you keep trying and nothing works. Some of these failed experiments turned out ok. Others, not at all. The ones that worked out better were on Hanemhulhe Cornwall paper, with white watercolour dropped in to a mix of Indigo and Bloodstone Genuine. The ones that didn't were on really thick Two Rivers paper. The first one in the series here is the one I am trying to reproduce! I did use Grey of Grey and white watercolour in there somewhere - maybe that is what lifted? There was something in the layering, or the timing, that lifted beautifully when I ran a damp brush with a light wash over it! All experiments are postcard-size. No point in going larger until I can figure this out. And yes, I am very tempted to try different pigments, but I know I shouldn't change the parameters!

Creative Shift Week 3

Introducing visual elements - I think this could take three weeks for me! I chose 1 image from Naomi Tydeman and 2 from Marc Taro Holmes, and a few of my own for comparison. Quite a difference between what I am attracted to in these artists' paintings versus how I paint. It was good to analyse what visual elements they use to create the mood.

Here is a little video of what I have posted in my studio book for the week.

Please forgive the sound in the background of the video - a neighbour is getting her garden done, and there seems to be excessive use of the leaf-blower! But then it seems that my turning the pages actually makes more noise than the leaf blower!

Love granulation - want more of it!

Going in the right direction - not quite where I want to be yet, but I'm excited about this. You will still recognise the same landscape. Well, I do anyway. But I'm pushing it more towards abstraction. And I'm having fun with granulation. Need a lot more paint to get to what I want. This was done on a cold press Canson paper, the grain of the paper shows more than I would like, but it also contributes to the granulation! And I'm proud that I showed restraint with my soft pastels

 

Creative Shift Week 2

Interesting explorations into inspirations and influences in Week 2 of Creative Shift 2026. It took me somewhere I didn't expect. From a random watercolour artist I had seen on Instagram (Naomi Tydeman) and put into my Google Keep collection, to The Apocalypse Variations, a collection by Marc Taro Holmes from 2019. I have the book and I had forgotten how much I love this work of his!

I don't know what it will do to the way I paint, but it's certainly something to explore on my creative journey.

Here is a short video capturing my notes and images.

A landscape, Not a landscape

Work in progress. I'm moving to my square images and looking at this hidden landscape where I feel I belong. Where I feel fearless, grounded, embraced. The original version stared at me from the board for a number of weeks before I understood what it needed. It's not quite a painting I would frame. But I like the shapes, the value contrast and some of the curved lines. The journey continues.

 

Back to process - Creative Shift

I'm going to be busy for the next few weeks with Creative Shift, an online program I attended a couple of years ago. I feel it's the right time to get back to it, as I want to dig deeper into my creativity and my art journey. Here is a page from the first week. There's plenty more, but more personal stuff, and my handwriting isn't as hard to read as I thought it was. So this is all I'm prepared to share here.

Soft pastels are hard to resist

I'm giving myself permission to play, to explore, without a precise goal in sight. I'm interested in softer shapes, circles, more neutral colours. No idea where that will lead. Or how long I will be able to resist the urge to paint with more intention. But Unison soft pastels were the perfect tool for this, added on top of some of the circles from my previous session.

 

Exploring the softer side of circles

I'm resisting the temptation to "paint a painting". I want to explore how to do those circles in watercolour. Not as easy as in ink. I played with a variety of papers, from rough to very smooth print paper and heavy-weight cartridge paper. Oh and there was a blob too. But an interesting blob. Some of these are A2 (roughly half sheet), some a bit smaller. Used Cretacolour watersoluble pencil, my new Lyra chunky pencil, and also some Inktense in one of the pieces