Dancing the Night Away

Dancing the Night Away

8x10 inches

Watercolours and watercolour pencils on watercolour board

I have always loved watercolours - not actually painting them, for this is a medium I never seem to master, but because of my struggle, I have all the more appreciation for those who do master this beautiful medium. My biggest problem is letting go and allowing the paint to do it's thing. I really wanted to do this painting in watercolours alone, but then that need for detail and tightness reared it's ugly head and so I ended up relenting and completing it with watercolour pencils. Nevertheless, I will continue to play and practice and research and see if I can't one day produce a piece that I am truly satisfied with.

One of the things I have also struggled with is using masking fluid. This time, I tried watering it down slightly, and that seemed to make the liquid much more managable. I have read on numerous sites that the masking fluid is impossible to remove from your brushes once set, however I use a wonderful product by Pascoes called Oomph Glue Remover for removing everything from adhesive to chewing gum, and to my delight this liquid removed all traces of masking fluid from my paint brush restoring it to it's former glory. It smells a little like the Zest-it used to blend coloured pencils, so I'm wondering whether the Zest-it might also work for those who have some.

The Little Fossicker

One of the problems I experience as an artist living in Australia is the lack of available materials and resources we can access as compared to the US and UK. When I first started painting miniature watercolours 3 or 4 years ago, I wasn't happy with traditional watercolour papers and so the search was on for a surface that would allow me to produce fine detail, and also allow for some reworking. I stumbled across Fredrix Watercolor Canvas and loved what this surface enabled me to do with watercolours. But paintings done on this surface don't reproduce into prints very well as they tend to have quite a grainy appearance. At that time, I couldn't find a quality Illustration board in any of our local artshops, and whilst I could have ordered some from the US, this isn't always practical when it comes to ordering large sheets.

The other day, I stumbled across some Crescent Illustration Board in one of our local artshops and decided to redo a little painting of one of our boys when they were young (one of my favourites). The painting on top was done two years ago on the canvas, and the one below was done on the illustration board. Some of you may prefer the canvas, but I must admit I was much happier with the results on the illustration board. We head off tomorrow for our holiday and I will definitely be packing the watercolours for more experimenting.