colour and light

I've never got on with masking fluid.  No matter how careful I am, the surface of the paper always gets damaged, whether I'm using it neat or diluted.  Nonetheless, in a continued spurt of post-Christmas enthusiasm, I decided a couple of weekends ago to have another try with it, drawing the outline of a dove holding an olive branch.  To create a really vibrant background I dampened rather than wetted the paper, and dropped in large amounts of pure colour.  Then I spattered some water over the  whole thing, just to see what would happen.

dove of peace
watercolour & ink
© Teresa Kirkpatrick 2011

The result was a fabulous range of colour, softened in places by some sublte runbacks.  But when I peeled off the masking fluid, a little of the surface paper came away with it.  The paper I use is extremely soft, which explains the problem (on the other hand, you can soak it several times without it complaining at all LOL)  I further defined the dove with a pen, but on the whole it's rather unsatisfactory. Still, the success of the background had made me keen to try again - but without the masking fluid next time!

Accordingly, last Sunday I carefully drew a pencil outline of a dove, then rubbed most of it out, dampened the area outside the outline and lobbed in even more pure colour than I had with the previous painting.  After it dried off a little I spattered some water to see what would happen.  Then I left it alone for several hours before painting in the dove with a backlit effect (I should 'fess up right here that I pinched the idea of the backlit dove from a Christmas card I got several years ago).

Spirit
watercolour
© Teresa Kirkpatrick 2011

This produced a far better result - although the dove is a bit wonky, the backlighting gives a lively effect.  I'm really pleased with the intensity of colour. And, as last Sunday was the feast of the Baptism of the Lord, when according to the gospel of Matthew, the Spirit of God descended on Jesus like a dove, I've called it Spirit.

Finally, this week my latest order arrived from Great Art.  I've decided to liven up my colour palette and introduce some of my experimental techniques into other areas of my painting.  So - more paper, a new porcelain palette, several new tubes of watercolour paint in shades I haven't used before; oh yes, and I must get round to doing some more linocutting . . .