Are You Ready for a Challenge?

I've asked several of the members of the Guild if they would be interested in participating in monthly painting challenges and the response was very encouraging, so I created a painting challenge for January 2014.  If you have time, please join us for some fun monthly challenges.  I will try to make them as diverse as possible, so that everyone can play along.  Please bring your results to our January meeting on the 16th for a quick Show N' Tell.  Remember, Ian Ramsey will be our guest speaker!

Painting with a Palette Knife Experiment by: Cindy Powell

Notice I said experiment in the title of this challenge-the results I managed to accomplish were random and unpredictable.  I think that is why I love this technique so much.  No two paintings would be the same.  Each painting will be unique to the individual artist, so please, if you have time, take a few minutes to do this experiment and bring your results to our Jan. meeting for Show N’ Tell on January 16th. 

I have provided a pencil drawing for those who would simply like to trace the “Hose bib” as I have drawn it, using graphite paper or you can use it as a reference for your own drawing or you can go to this website: SplashingPaint to download the original image.  Notice this is the link to the download page, so check out the other free tutorials offered.  (We may use this site again in the future as there are a few good free tutorials here).  The tutorial given is for the use of a limited palette, my version is using the image provided, but with a different set of instructions that I found in a wonderful book titled: “Watercolor Wisdom” by Jo Taylor AWS from our local Sandy Library.  (Book Review Coming Soon!)

First draw the image on your watercolor paper-and this doesn’t have to be perfect-a quick sketch will do just fine!  Make some changes if you like or use another image of your choice.  Right click the image below for a full sized image to download or print.

Select your color palette:  I was using a cheap Master’s Touch Travel Palette so I have no idea what colors I was actually using.  Blue, Red, Purple was what I had available.  Wet your pigment with a spray bottle of water, or whatever method you use to wet your pigments and using a palette knife, pick up some pigment on the tip of the knife and apply it to your image.  Your paper should be dry at this point.  (You may want to EXPERIMENT with how wet you want your pigment at this stage.  Very dry pigment seems to cause more problems and is harder to work with.) (You may also want to dampen your paper with a sponge-the choices are all yours!)

Once your pigments are where you want them, load a 1” flat brush with clean water and start to apply really wet washes everywhere you applied the pigment.  Tilt your paper and let the water & pigments run.  Let it dry to see if you need to repeat the steps. 

Personally, I was not happy with my results so I applied more pigment to darken the blues and purples. 

When I repeated the step to apply the pigment, I used very wet pigment with a very wet brush and simply let it run.  Very loose and very free flowing.  This is the end result of my experiment and I look forward to seeing your experiment at Show N’ Tell.  Have Fun!  :-D Cindy