Italian Washing line in shade

Italian washing line in shade

I’ve been working on the watercolours still. Again doodling, trying to make it all work. Apart from the what does the fox say? tribute kinda thing, I wanted to see how I could do adding more doodles and depth.

just for the record, this was completed using multiple layers of washes, built up. The cloths and washing on the line I used solid rather than transparent washes. The curtains I decided to mix a little white gouache with to get a more solid colour.

Then, after layering various different doodles of washes and watercolours, I emphasised the edges of the washes with black pen.

One other thing I used, I wanted to be able to lift out highlights, so I used some preglazing stuff which you paint over the top of the paper and it makes it easier to lift more of the washes off without a tint on the paper. it worked really well, so I might use it again in future.

I did wonder whether or not the masking fluid would work ok. Would it lift off the pre-glaze fluid? Would it lift off the pen? Looks like it was fine all the way through

So…a little evaluation.

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I’m still trying to work out how to get a really strong contrast between the colours. It’s ok, but what you see here again is a bit of contast balancing. The problem is, I think, that I am so used to looking at pictures online, or printed on shiny paper, that I want my paintings to have the same kind of luminosity and contrast. I’ll keep working on that.

I outlined each and every wash edge…not sure I didn’t over do it a little bit. I will do a little less next time.

Let me know what you think.