More Watercolor Experimentation

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I began this painting on a full sheet of watercolor paper. This time it was a handmade Indian paper with very little sizing. I put blobs of water down and floated the color into them. Once again, I did not stretch the paper or tape it to a board. The water made it curl up and make hills and valleys, all very irregular. I love that. It guides the color when you float it into the water, and makes very interesting shapes.

Because the picture reminded me of fireworks, I felt that it should have a background of night sky, and I set about creating one, after the fact, filling in the empty background areas with a dark blue-black color. Here I made some new discoveries. I found that if I wet the lighter areas enough, the clear water would eat its way into the dark blue paint in an irregular and spidery fashion. SEE THE IMAGE ON THE RIGHT.

I’m not sure of where this is all going, but I want to make the abstract shapes seem to be floating, translucent, like colorful lit up clouds. I’ll post it when I’m done. I know I will have to deal with straightening out the paper afterwards. Wish me luck.