TEXTURE AND COLOR EXPLORATION!

This is a quarter sheet of 300 lb hot press watercolor paper that was a failed painting. I was anxious to try some of the new ideas I have been reading in the new books I purchased recently. I spread some gesso over the ugly painting then I took some white wrapping tissue and gessoed it onto the page in two large areas and let it dry. Next I took Golden's fiber paste and a credit card for a scraper and troweled the paste over a stencil to get a raised relief image. I then took the stencil and laid it down on another area of the painting and ran a brayer over the back in order to transfer the residue paste creating a negative of the stencil. When the whole thing was dry, I used the triad of Yellow Ochre, Burnt Sienna and Paynes Gray to paint the page.

In Critique session this morning, Jane Ferguson had done a bunch of great little artist's trading cards. They are 2.5 x 3.5. I decided to divide up my page into these rectangles. If I want, I can cut this page apart and have lots of Artist's Trading Cards. As it stands now, this is a study page for some textural techniques and the range of colors I can achieve with this triad. I really like the colors and want to do a portrait with them.

This detail shows the number stencil I used and the metal stencil that I scrubbed out the color with a toothbrush .




This detail shows the fiber paste through a metal labyrinth stencil. I also used a few of the Derwent Graphite colored watercolor pencils to enhance some of the shapes.





Here you can see one of the metal stencils used in three different ways; fiber forced through the openings, residue pressed onto the page and color lifted by scrubbing with a toothbrush while stencil is held to the paper, then blotting.





Here is the positive and negative fiber paste stenciled. Looks like pressing the fibers through the stencil smooth it out. I like the bas relief effect.



This was a fun little project. Tomorrow I will try to do another 1/4 sheet with a different texturing idea and a different color scheme.