Layers

pastel, watercolor, graphite, ink

I think water-soluble pencils are my new favorite minimalist media/medium (which?). Portable, easily mixable, and quick. Quick like you can do this in a minute or start and finish later. I took Monica Fogg's Color Theory class a month of so ago and that helped me think about warm and cool colors and how they mix together. So there was that.

Carl Oldvelt's class of watercolors and pastels showed me another way of work. I wasn't sure I'd like pastels but it was cool how he mixed them together.

At my last Inspired by Books tour at the Mia, I went into the little dark gallery with the colors collection and one of the artists--I can't remember who and I should check my notes--used watercolor, ink, and pastels and layered them but used the fixer between layers. Oh my! Hmm, how would that work? I've been doing that all day now. I went to Wet Paint to use my last coupon and purchase the fixative that I lost somewhere on the last road trip (along with my chair). Bought a few more colors of pencils to have cool and warm. Started scribbling and spraying and layering. Kind of fun!

Monica suggested that I not use the green water-soluble pencils but to make green instead because there would be more richness and depth in the color. I was having fun making greens and then I made some purples. That exercise will help me also when I ever go back to acrylics. I know I have at least two blues, two reds, and two yellows and I added a fuchsia to the red family.


The layering idea has me revisiting old watercolors that I didn't like and then adding layers on top to "fix" or "improve" what I originally did. It would have been practice paper anyway so what the heck--use it to experiment. When I was at Kilen Woods State Park I started to watercolor the prairie-woods-field and then it started to storm (I think that's where I left my chair and fixative). Now I've added pastels to the trees. So much better and almost spooky-woods-like. Not sure how I can make the field and prairie part work but I think stripes in the field and dots in the prairie.

I don't really know what I'm doing besides experimenting. I feel like a kid making a mud pie. I can fit a few water soluble pencils in my everyday work bag along with my travel brush. My Hobonichi paper planner accepts watercolors without bleeding so I'm set for spur of the moment drawing/painting something.