And on to the next Quinacridone - Quinacridone Purple this week.
Last year while travelling in South Africa, I bought a different kind of sponge for painting - a
loofah. I was curious about what sort of marks it would make. It was very disappointing that I managed to leave it out of my bag when I packed, but Lori brought it with her when she came in December so I thought I'd do a sponge wash with it for the last week of January.
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| Arches watercolour journal entry for Daniel Smith Quinacridone Purple |
Early warning - this post has loads of photos. I took snaps of the process along the way. Feel free to skim through them if you're easily bored. :-)
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Quinacridone Purple and Pthalo Blue mix in the palette. Pure Quinacridone Violet (left) and Quinaridone Purple (right) in the smaller palette.
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I was looking for a good juicy dark colour so chose Pthalo Blue to mix with the Quinacridone Purple - being two transparents, both with good intensity.
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First wash - Quinacridone purple wet in wet, and wet on dry. Quinacridone Violet added in the top of the page for a bit of variation.
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My first wash was just a random laying down of colour to get a warm background, leaving about a third of the page white.
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| Ready to lay on the sponge marks |
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| Dry sponge, wet paint. |
The loofah doesn't hold much paint - as you can see its fibrous rather than absorbent. But it does may some very cool shapes on the paper.
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| Mark making with the dry sponge and wet paint. (apolologies for the photo quality) |
Quite different marks appear when you drag the sponge (left) to when you press it down like a stamp. The Loofah's circular end shape makes quite distinct shapes when used this way (right)
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| Mark making with a damp sponge and thick paint. |
The difference between the marks made with a dry sponge and those made with a damp sponge are not enormous on the paper. However, this sponge is fragile so it tends to fray somewhat when used dry. Care needs to be taken not to apply too much pressure or bits break off. Dampening it solves this problem, but requires thicker paint to make distinct marks.
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| Enchanted Forest |
Sticking with my tree theme - I created another painting for
Running With Brushes. The final image was painted using Quinacridone Purple as a base colour, and adding pure Quinacridone Violet for lighter tones, and the mix of Quin Purple and Pthalo Blue for the darks.