Here is the painting after the final watercolour pour using lots of pigment:

And here is the painting after I removed the masking fluid:



The piece has a wonderful screen-print look to it right now, but will need a bit more work in order to define shapes...

Phew! I'm feeling better about the details in the tree after the second pour! It's difficult and strange to paint out details in a clear masking fluid, not really knowing what shapes I'll end up with. I need to imagine that the shapes are there, and trust that I'll see them after the next pour of colour.
The next step was to mask out more shapes and values – this time all the dappled shadows in the mid and foreground, and lots of mid-values in the tree and water. Overall, I'm pleased with the variety of colour temperatures in the piece. There is one more pour left to do, and I want to make that one quite intensely pigmented.
Here's the painting so far:

I'm still in love with watercolour pouring, so I've started another painting! Here is the sketch:

And here is the first pour of colour after I masked the brightest whites:



I'm a wee bit nervous about how I'll manage to capture all of the foliage in the tree in the middle ground, but I'm going to jump in anyway and try!

The fine details that I added to the painting were created with brushed in washes of colour, as well as coloured pencil to help bump up textured areas. For my first attempt at a watercolour pour, I was thrilled with the results!
Here is the finished painting:

After my final pour of intense colour I let the painting dry thoroughly before removing all of the masking. This is what the painting looked like at that point:

My very last task was to paint in the small details that couldn't be achieved through pouring. I'll show you the final product on Monday!

The third watercolour pour was a bit more focused and used slightly more concentrated pigment. This time I was concentrating on really darkening the shadows behind the sewing objects and in the folds and bumps of the woven mat. Next, I used a fat, soaked brush to deposit drops of intense colour in the scissors and several of the buttons, and to splash some unexpected colour in the green mat. I did a bit more masking of the middle values so that the next pour would deepen and intensify the shadows:

Tomorrow, one more pour, then the mask comes off!

I found that after the first watercolour pour was dry I had lost some of my sketch lines, so next I reinforced those lines with a slightly darker pencil:

My next watercolour pour used a higher concentration of pigment to water. I poured in smaller pools of pigment this time, keeping in mind colour temperature and value:



After the painting was thoroughly dry I applied masking fluid to the mid-values, careful to preserve texture in the green woven fabric of my subject matter.

Tomorrow, the dramatic third watercolour pour!

This weekend I started a watercolour painting using primarily masking and watercolour pouring to lay down colour. I love this process!
After I did a detailed sketch on an 11” x 19” sheet of 150lb watercolour paper, I masked out areas that I wanted to stay white and near-white in the final piece. This is what the initial sketch looked like:

The next step was to mix three containers of pigment and water in red, blue and yellow. (This first watercolour pour is a relatively low-intensity wash of colour, so I used more water to pigment.) After liberally brushing the paper with clear water, I poured the pigment washes out next to each other across the wet paper, then tilted the surface to let the colours run and mix a bit, keeping in mind where I wanted the cool and warm colours to end up. When I was happy with the distribution of colour, I tilted the excess off onto paper towels and let the painting dry thoroughly. The next step was to mask out areas where I wanted to keep this light wash of
colour – all the mid-to-light values:




Tomorrow I'll show the next step in the process – adding more intense colour!

I wanted to do a more traditional collage this time rather than one done digitally. This one is a combination of magazine images (including stickers of spinach leaves and cheese I found in a magazine!), black marker, chalk pastel and tissue paper: