Golden Venetian Door on Red Bubble

When I finished Golden Venetian Door last weekend (see previous post), I really was not sure at first if I liked it or not. It was such a departure from what I usually paint. However, I have been looking at it all week and going back to it to add a touch of paint here, a shadow there...and I now really like it! And it's just been featured on Red Bubble.

I think that I will get this one framed professionally: at about 8". X 11", it should not be too expensive :-) I usually frame my paintings myself, with sectional metal frames and a plain mat, but I feel that in some cases a professional framer may be able to bring out more the best in a painting.

Any tips about framing watercolors?

Experimenting with Soft Press - Going Wild!

Yesterday was my birhday...one of those big numbers. Consequently, today I decided to show that I was still young enough and go wild...at least with my Fabriano SP paper and my paints :-)

The following sketch represents a lot of "first time" for me:

• for the first time, I used a ink sketch as starting point (micron pen)
• for the first time, I used Inktense pencils ...well, just one, for the door
• for the first time, I used metallic acrylic : Golden fluid, fine gold and fine copper
• for the first time, I used white acrylic for a lot of my whites.
• for the first time...but this was by mistake...I used iridescent acrylic in the spatter: I grabbed the wrong container and in the evening light, did not notice immediately that I was not spattering white acrylic:-(
• for the first time, I used neutral tint to darken a color: I used it to darken the ultramarine blue used behind the metallic grid over the door.

So....here is this strange concoction, which I entitled " Golden Door". As usual, it is from one of my Venice pictures.

Don't hesitate to say that this is my ugliest painting...it's probably true. Anyway,  I had a lot of fun painting this today and with one more birthday behind me, I should now be mature enough to take it :-)

Take care and have a nice weekend.

Experimenting with Soft Press Paper - Part II

I have played some more wiith the Fabriano's 140 lb SP paper.
In completing the  Gondola sketch  I observed the following:

• Removing masking over painted areas also removes the paint. This is the downside of the fact that this paper allows for such easy lifting techniques.
• In the same way, the smallest addition of water to a painted area will immediately disturb this first layer.
• I tried an automatic eraser on this paper and was pleased to see that it did lift out paint without any apparent impact on the paper: this is a good way to add highlights in small ares.
• The colors seem to remain more vivid than on the cold press paper. This picture was taken with a flash inside - so the colors are not true.

In conclusion, I will certainly use this paper again. I now know that if I use masking, it has to be to retain whites and not to protect already painted areas. My next experiment with this paper will probably be combined with my attempt to develop my floral painting skills.

As you can see, I am still procrastinating before starting a larger, more demanding painting:-)

Have a great week!

Experimenting with Fabriano's Soft Press watercolor paper

I am continuing my experiments with various watercolor papers. This time, I have tried Fabriano's Soft Press 140lb paper. I think this is going to be a winner!

Fabriano states that the soft press is somewhere between its hot press and its cold pressed paper. I wanted to try it out for myself with a quick sketch. I started the most typical Venetian scene possible: gondolas facing San Giorgio's. I may or may not complete this small  5"X 7" painting, but I am ready to share the following observations :

The soft press paper:

• has a texture similar to most CP papers: in other words, it is not as slick as most Hot Press. You don't have the impression of being on a skating rink.
• allows for extremely easy lifting of paints.  For example, on the main gondola cover, most of the highlights were achieved by lifting of paint, either while wet or once it had dried.  I loved that feature of this paper. This probably makes the paper closer to HP than CP. 
• should be ideal for florals
• is probably not the best for texture , although this is only an assumption on my part since I have not yet tried to achieve any special texture effects on this paper. Any comments about this?
• is a lot more economical in Ottawa, Canada than any of the Arches paper ( almost half the cost of the 140 lb CP Arches).

I really enjoyed working on this paper and this is definitely a paper that I will try again.

I would be very interested in reading comments from those of you who have painted on this Fabriano 140 lb Soft Press paper.