During the summer, I took a several session online class called “Experimental Watercolor” with teacher Susan McFarland at the Lexington Arts and Crafts Society.
The technique she shared starts by creating a textured surface by dipping a variety of stencils and other materials into a mixture of gesso and acrylic medium and pressing these onto the paper. After the surface dries, one applies a couple of wet washes that are allowed to spread over the entire paper. Where the surface of the paper is raised the patterns from the stencils will show through. We made several of these.
The next step involved matching the photos we wished to paint with the surface that went together with it best. For this, we needed to consider not just color palette, but shapes, direction, and general mood. Some photos seemed like an obvious match. Others were more of a stretch. Susan called these matches “Prom Dates.”
Using tracing paper over our Prom Date, we then drew the general outline of our picture with both the photo AND the textured paper as our guides. After highlighting this tracing with a sharpie, we placed the textured paper on top of a thin light board and the tracing underneath, so that we could trace the outline onto our paper with a pencil.
Where a wash covered an area that needed to be lighter, we could erase it out. Susan showed us other techniques for building up color in other parts of our paintings.
The result is a dynamic image that has movement and life. I call this painting “Havana by Day.”
