Which Sense?

Another painting I did while procrastinating from the larger painting I'm also working on, this one was based on doodles. The doodles were just following the ones I used to make the last painting (Night Harvest). In fact, I just continually flip through the notebook and use up the doodles, in order, until the painting looks full. Not sure what this painting is all about, the title was because there were many senses depicted in the work.. taste, sight, hearing (I imagine that the people in the middle are playing a concert).

In the last blog I talked about glazing... that's where you overlap layers of paint. You do it by letting the first layer dry, and then applying a second wash. I used that technique extensively throughout this painting. The best example are the dark brown characters in the chairs, they were started with a layer of warm yellow (ochre), which dried overnight. Then I overlayed with cobalt blue. Finally I accented with some darker blues to produce the shadow and volume. Glazing was also used for the tongue-like thing... there are actually three or four layers of alternating blue-purple and red-orange layers. To make the tongue looked smooth, I quickly brushed over the finished product with a moist brush... this is risky to do and takes practice, but what it does is smooth out the appearance... I wanted the tongue to look soft and a little slimy even!

Another quirky note, I painted on the wrong side of the paper... rarely do I make this error anymore, there is nothing really wrong with doing that, but it does change the consistency of the washes, and I found that the overall product finally looked a little more matte instead of glossy, which kind of worked in favour of the overall mellow feeling.

Which Sense? 11 x 15" cold press, watercolour, 2013, (No. 1765)