Winter is a difficult time to paint watercolours outdoors. When on location at -10 Celsius (that is 14 F!) the paint freezes, the palette freezes, and you butt freezes. Alcohol helps a bit, at least with your butt, but the main solution is to add salt to the water. Even so, the paint will dry with ice crystals leaving a frozen effect in the finished work which you can see if you click on the picture to zoom in. The paint handles more like a crayon than watercolour, and it is nearly impossible to make more than one layer or control the edges properly. Having said all that I love the way these paintings turn out, you really FEEL the cold when you look at this work. I even abbreviated my usual signature here as P.D probably because I was cold as **** having sat in my little camping chair for 20 minutes in freezing temperature. One little secret, most of the entire bottom half of this painting is just blank paper which produces the brilliant snow effect, and saves a bit of time.
Also cool, this is post number 400 for my blog!
5 x 7" watercolour, really cold press, (No. 455) 1996-1997
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