Wednesday, August 26, 2015

Eggs and Mankind

How many eggs does it take to screw in a lightbulb? 11, because one is scrambled. But seriously, this painting was done from a group of doodles, which were assembled into a complete work of art. The art work contains some typical features of this style, including a tree line and a sunset. The eggs are meant to look like eyes in the sky, and the mankind, well, its hidden behind the trees.

Controlling watercolout paint is possible, with a lot of practice. When I first started painting many years ago the paint was an uncontrollable animal, but over the years the animal was tamed. Look in the top part of this painting, there is a series of grey and red streaks on a yellow background. to achieve this, the yellow wash is applied, and at precisely the right time (about 20-40 seconds later depending on relative humidity in the air) you drop in the redish mix which is altzerian crimson and viridian green. Then when that is just about dry you drop in a stronger mix of the same colours with more of the green, and a touch of ultramarine blue. If the timing is perfect then the colours bleed into each other. If too wet it all mixes, if too dry it looks choppy. This whole painting is filled with the same technique, I guess you would call it a triple wet-in-wet. As they say in the e-sports world, good luck and have fun.  

Eggs and Mankind, 11 1/4 x 14.5", cold press watercolour, 2015 (No.1759)

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