It’s a quick post today, just for a catch-up… I spent more time today trying to make the paper work for me with John’s Rose and eventually admitted defeat with this one. I just can’t get any sharp lines or bleed the colour properly and the washes are just soaking straight in and drying with a very strange spongelike texture – see the insert below for a small detail of the painting as it stands now.
I think I’m just going to have to resign to defeat with this paper as it is at the moment. Maybe I can buy some DIY sizing liquid to try coating the rest of the pad with, but it’s fairly impossible as it is to get results from it. I did start the painting afresh, but there’s not much to share at the moment.
Thank goodness it only seems to be one of the two pads I bought. Fortunately, the other block seems to be behaving much better, as you can see by the second stage of the Zantedeschia Lily that I started before Christmas. I just think this probably needs the leaves defining a bit more and some of their trademark spots adding and then I can stop 🙂 .