March 11, 2011

Wet Paint...

We have a wonderful art supply store in our area which I have come to love. It is located on the hip and trendy Grand Avenue called "Wet Paint." Incredibly, at the exact same time as my son's choir practice when I have time to kill, this fine store has classes and demos to delight and enthuse artists of all ages. A very good marketing plan on their part. I usually can't walk out of there without purchasing some portion of the night's "intrigue."

Last night was no exception. I had two hours and Wet Paint had a demo of a new product. The fine people that work their demonstrated a new watercolor ground. It is a product that transforms any surface (ie. rocks, glass, metal, cardboard, etc) into essentially watercolor paper. A surface that can't usually be painted on with watercolors, now becomes a porous surface that excepts the medium.
I didn't see an immediate need for that particular item, but when they let me play with the watercolors they had out, I fell in love with some of the pigments. They had a "buy three-get one free" deal. The color that you got free was a gorgeous gold color, Quinacridone Gold.
My "color" wish list.
I was obviously thinking ahead to my plans for visiting the Dominican Republic this summer. I have a lot of much-needed downtime while on vacation that I could use on something creative. The only problem is that there is limited suitcase space for anything other than the essentials. I found that watercolor is a very portable medium. The paper and the tubes of paint and paint brushes take up very little room (and weight) in my suitcase. It allows me to have some type of creative endeavor while I'm away from my studio space.
Mind you, I realize that I have a very little grasp on how to use watercolors! I'm new to the media. Yet, it is still very cathartic to sit out in a warm sun under a palm tree painting the local fauna especially when the colors there are so much more vivid than where I usually reside. With that in mind, I picked very tropical colors. I can't wait to have the opportunity to use them. Hopefully my paintings will improve with practice.
Local fauna in the D.R.

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 I'm still enjoying creating tealight Christmas villages with paper.