A New Challenge – Watercolour Washes

It’s time to start again… I haven’t been moving my brushes enough lately, and I haven’t written at all…  life has been busy: several new challenges at work over the past year, finding and buying a new place to live, then moving in and trying to make it home… but there are always reasons and excuses. The trick is to keep the momentum going regardless, and I lost it. I came to a full stop, and stayed there.

The break has been interesting, there’s definitely been some guilt about not painting. There’s been a lot more guilt about the state of my website, which I keep expecting to find has been hacked and is now selling something noxious behind my back (it isn’t, is it?). There’s also the temptation to just forget about it all for good and go read a good book instead.

Then I see what everyone else is doing and my interest is piqued again: new techniques, new colours, new styles!

So here we are… I’ve been invited to join a Facebook Group for watercolour washes. The aim is to create and share two small washes each per week, minimum. I’m absolutely certain I can find the time and inspiration to do that!  And so here are my first two:

The first is a loose experiment using Indigo and Ultramarine Turquoise, which played very nicely together on a sample sheet of St. Cuthbert’s Mill, Saunders Waterford paper.

The second is a bit more figurative and uses Gold Green, Cascade Green, Cadmium Orange and Indian Yellow. The daffodil petals were formed using negative painting, simply painting around the white space to create them then adding a very light greeny grey for some shadows.

I’ve been a bit handicapped this week with a fractured wrist, which is why the first wash is so simple. The daffodil was actually painted just before the fracture, so I’m using a bit of artistic licence to share it as part of this first challenge week.

Watch this space to see what happens next week!