anika mari

After I finished my latest sea urchin print and the squashed caterpillar byproduct painting, I had the novel idea to do an actual non-experimental painting. Watercolor is a relatively new medium for me though, so I ended up experimenting anyway.

I started out by drawing what seems to be my favorite shape in a scattered pattern across the rough surface of the paper. I used watercolor pencils to create the pointy ended ovoid shapes. When I do watercolor paintings that start off with a drawing, I like to use watercolor pencils. They are forgiving in that you can usually dissolve errant lines and marks with some water and not affect the overall painting when all is said and done.

I began the actual painting by smoothing out the drawn lines with water. I then added some blues and greens and got some really cool textures.

The painting was done, but the bright white background bugged me. I figured that I could painstakingly color in the background by carefully working around each blue shape, but I wanted to figure out an easier way. I reasoned that it didn’t really matter if I messed the whole thing up, so I could try something new.

The idea was to color in the background as quickly as possible. To achieve that end, I used a paper towel. First I dipped the towel in water and swept it across the painting, back and forth until the whole surface was moistened. The blue shapes bled a little as I expected they would, but still maintained their delicate textures. It was working! Then I dipped the paper towel in the light green color I had prepared, and using a similar stroke, I applied the color to the paper.

To get an even coat of the green, I had to work the surface more than I had when just wetting it. Sadly, the blue paint bled even more and blended with the green and dulled down the whole painting.

So my experiment didn’t exactly work, but I attempted to salvage the piece by re-painting the blue shapes. Because the entire surface of the paper was pretty wet, the darker blue paint bled out from the edge of many of the shapes. The watercolor texture isn’t quite as pretty either, and overall the painting looks somewhat dull, so I plan to add some ink drawing to the shapes which I think will help save this particular painting.

Since I had the paper towel out and ready, I used it to create a pretty light green wash on a new piece of watercolor paper. It worked great on the plain white surface. The color is bright and cheerful and not at all muddied. I’m discovering that planning is often my friend when I’m working with watercolor. I’m going to create a similar composition of blue ovoid shapes on the fresh light green background so I can see if the painting will turn out how I planned from the beginning.