Vandy Massey - Week #52

White Roses 12cm x 12cm

We've reached the last of our 52 weeks of washes. It's been fantastic to share this project with such a wonderful international group of artists and to see the range of styles and approaches of each.

Paper: Saunders Waterford HP

Pigments: Green Gold, Daniel Smith Pthalo Turquoise, Daniel Smith Shadow Violet.

My wishes for your painting next year:

Clean white paper for fresh opportunities in 2016

Green Gold for fresh new ideas in 2016

Phtalo Turquoise for clear clean colour in 2016

Shadow Violet for glorious textures in 2016

Thank you for following us through the year.

Happy New Year!

Vandy Massey - Week #51

Amarylis Flower 12cm x 12cm

In South Africa, Amarylis bulbs flower in December. A glorious big red blossom is a fantastic alternative to traditional Christmas flowers. The blossoms are big, bright and dramatic.

Paper: Saunders Waterford HP

I decided to use two colours - from opposite sides of the colour wheel:

Perylene Maroon and Perylene Green.

Using these I was able to get some rich darks for the centre of the blossom and the detail on the bud. Using my two bristle length brush I pulled the wet pigment downward when it was partially dry to create a shadowy texture below the flowers.

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas.

Vandy Massey - Week #50

Mark making with another brush: this one with bristles of two lengths.

Paper: Bockingford 190gsm CP (NOT)

Perylene Green and Indathrone Blue, painted wet in wet for the first wash.

A second wash of Indathrone Blue painted with the 2-bristle-length brush. Where the paint is wet on dry, some contouring can be implied with the direction of strokes.

Bristles of two lengths.

Vandy Massey - Week #49

Looking at the difference in atmosphere created by the use of one additional colour:

Paper: Bockingford 190gsm CP (NOT)

Winsor Violet, Neutral Tint and Burnt Umber painted wet in wet for an atmospheric, watery, misty  landscape. 

Winsor Violet, Neutral Tint and Burnt Umber painted wet in wet. The addition of dilute Pthalo Turquoise gives the image a much lighter and more watery feel. 

Vandy Massey - Week #48

More green exploration - this time using yellow and blue.

Paper: Bockingford 190gsm CP (NOT)

Quinacridone Gold, Olive Green and Cascade Blue painted wet in wet. Light and texture in a delicate balance

Intense green as a result of painting Quinacridone Deep Gold and Pthalo Turquoise wet in wet.

Much less subtle.

Vandy Massey - Week #47

Green is a notoriously difficult colour. Landscape artists often need to paint expanses of green fields, but how to do so without it looking flat and sickly?

This post explore Daniel Smith's Cascade Green in combination with three different greens.

Cascade Green breaks to blue. 

Paper: Bockingford 190gsm CP (NOT)

Cascade Green and DS Olive Green painted wet in wet. A later splashing of Perylene Green looks grey in comparison to the greens.

DS Green Gold and Cascade Green. The granulation on the Cascade Green shows up beautifully against the green gold paint.

Perylene Green and Cascade Green. The grey tones of the Perylene Green is an excellent foil for the Cascade Green.

Vandy Massey - Week #46

I found an intriguing brush in the little pigment shop in Venice, and decided it had to be tried. (Picture at the end of this post).

It has three brush heads on one handle so it's ideal for making even parallel lines.

Paper in this post is Bockingford 190gsm CP (NOT)

First wash of Quinacridone gold. Parallel lines of Neutral Tint and Burnt Umber painted wet on dry. 

First wash of bands of Van Dyke Brown and Indigo. Second wash of parallel lines of Van Dyke Brown painted at right angles to the bands.

And here's the fascinating brush. I'm not sure I'll use it often, but its fun and effective when you want evenly-spaced lines.

Vandy Massey - Week #45

Focusing on pure colour and pattern over the next few posts, I'm getting back to the basics of washes.

On getting to know the characteristics of handmade bronze paint:

Paper: 190gsm Bockingford CP (NOT)

Perylene Maroon underwash. Second wash of bronze watercolour wet on dry, to show the burnish of the bronze paint.

Watercolour pencil lines of soft brown.  Second wash of Quinacridone Gold and hand mixed bronze paint.  Wet in wet, the bronze paint granulates creating good texture. However, the burnish only shows strongly when the paint is less granulated.

Vandy Massey - Week #44

Poppies in the sunlight

On this day, poppies aren't just poppies. They are beautiful reminders of the sacrifices made by so many for their fellow countrymen.

And just like those they represent, they're all unique.  

Small poppies in the distance painted onto bubble wrap before pressing onto the paper.

Feathery effects for petals created with dry brushstroke.

Vandy Massey - Week #43

Small Scarlets

Today was a day for painting poppies. In this version I painted on Arches HP using Quinacridone Coral, Perylene Maroon, Transparent Orange and Prussian Blue.

Negative shape poppies

Lightly sprayed clean water creates delicate lace texture 

Vandy Massey - Week #42

I had to try my new handmade pigments on a painting this weekend.  

Paper: Bockingford 300gsm

Pigments: Winsor and Newton Inthadrone blue and handmade Herculaneum blue.

I made bronze paint today and will be adding a bit of bling in the detail.

Vandy Massey - Week #41

Making the Blues

Warning: This post contains a higher than usual number of images.

Olivia's choice of challenge this month was perfectly timed. On a visit to Venice last week a fascinating little art shop was pointed out to me by fellow Running With Brushes artist, Seonaid Parnell. The shop is a treasure trove for colour enthusiasts. Shelves lined with jewel-like jars of vibrant raw pigments. Naturally, I had to buy their collection of blues: 

Raw pigments

Many of the colours are unfamiliar to me - at least their names are. The lovely Alice who served me, kindly wrote the names of each one on the bag so I can research the pigments.

 So rather than making this post about a particular image, I'm going to write about the process of making my first two blue paints.

The Ingredients

Having bought the pigments on impulse, I then had to work out how to make paint. Google came to the rescue and I found a couple of recipes. They were slightly different so I'm experimenting and sharing the process here.

For those who are interested: Recipe 1  (Earth Pigments)

Recipe 2 (Artists & Illustrators)

To start with, the list of ingredients:

Pigment, gum arabic, boiled water, glycerine (optional in all recipes) and honey

The Gum Mixture

My process:

Make the Gum mixture: 1 part gum arabic, 3 parts very hot water, 1 part glycerine and 1 part honey. Mix until smooth. 

First colour: Herculaneum Blue (also known as Egyptian Blue)

Herculaneum Blue mix

Next step is to mix in the pigment - I used equal parts of gum mixture and pigment powder.
If anyone decides to make watercolour paint - be warned - the mixing takes a while. Its important to put in the time to get rid of all the little lumps of powdered pigment - and they can me small and very tenacious.
This paint has a lovely creamy consistency and a super vibrant colour.

First brushstrokes - Herculaneum Blue

This recipe makes paint for pans (good thing as I don't have any unfilled tubes lying around).
 

 Second colour - Prussian Blue

Prussian Blue being mixed

I had a larger amount of pigment and gum mix for this colour. In the photo above you can see the powdered pigment at the bottom and he granules still not completely mixed at the top.

Thicker mix of Prussian Blue

My first lesson was that different pigments have different consistencies despite being mixed in the same ratios. The Prussian Blue came out a lot thicker and needs more water to get it to creamy consistency.

Recycling pudding ramekins to make very large pans

I have a substantial collection of glass ramekins which come with puddings in them from the supermarket. They struck me as being perfect for keeping my mixed paints. They are made of robust glass, stack quite neatly and provide a nice big mixing area.

And now to test my first 2 blues:

On HP Arches - can you see the little dark specks in the Prussian?

I tried it on 3 types of paper to see whether it reacts differently on any of them:

In each case I painted the pure colours wet on dry (left hand side of swatch) and then wet on wet directly next to that on the right hand side. Then I painted a strip of each wet on dry, and then put clean water inbetween to see how they would blend. Finally two small wet on dry strokes on their own to see how the paint would feel on the paper.

On NOT Langford

Both paints on NOT and dispersed with sprayed water. Lovely diffusion textures in both colours

On hand made Two Rivers paper (rough)

On hand made Two Rivers paper (rough)

Overall, I'm thrilled with my first hand made paints. The Herculean blue granulates much like Cerulean blue (not entirely surprising as they share some ingredients)

Both colours are beautifully intense and I'm looking forward to seeing the rest of my blues soon.

I'll post them all as I make them. More blues coming soon.

Vandy Massey - Week #40

Aquarium watching

Olivia was so right - I love this month's challenge. I am drawn to blues in my painting.

To kick off - this is one I did a while ago and donated to a charity auction. It was inspired by a photograph taken on a friend's son at the aquarium. I loved the blue light and the silhouette capturing the little boy's absolute fascination with the moving fish.

The paper was my trusty Bockingford 140 lb which I use for a lot of my small paintings.

Paints: Winsor turqoise, Pthalo Blue and a touch of Quin gold to add a tiny glow here and there.

Enjoy your blues. 

Vandy Massey - Week #39

Another mark-making post this week.
Take one wooden peg and pull it apart. Now, instead of gripping wet clothes, it makes a fantastic mark-making tool for wet paint.

Paper: Saunders Waterford 300gsm NOT

Winsor & Newton paints: Raw Sienna, Burnt Sienna, Burnt Umber

Using the wooden half-peg, different marks can be made with either end. Try using the flat, the side and the curve to get different marks. The wire coils make small evenly-spaced marks on the paper.

Approaching Sandstorm 

Final work using the wooden parts for the buildings and trees, and the metal coil for little doorway and window marks.

Happy mark-making!

Vandy Massey - Week #38

A Tale of Three Blues

Back to my colour journal - this time with three blues.

I particularly like the granulation in the cerulean and FUB.

Using the three colours I did a few water and spray sketches. I particularly wanted to see the granulation in operation when using the three together.

This second little example was done in my moleskine.

The blues are very intense together. In a full paintings I would add some greys to break the blues.

Vandy Massey - Week #37

Autumn leaves came to mind when I started thinking about Olivia's September challenge. I think it was the warm brown tones I'm starting to anticipate in the trees and the carpet of leaves on the ground.

Falling Leaves

The fact that coffee dries darker, unlike watercolour, creates the possibility of layering quite effectively. Its fairly easy to keep on darkening subsequent washes by concentrating the coffee a bit each time. In my case, I did it the lazy way - by just leaving it to evaporate for a day or two in between each layer.

Vandy Massey - Week #36

I'm working on a landscape that needs to be bright, happy colours and predominantly blue and green palette. These two factors were part of the brief.

I've generally found that bright blues tend to be the cooler ones and as I don't want the painting to feel cold, I had to find a way of bringing warmth into it.

Choosing a Quinacridone Gold as my basic yellow was a start. My next step was to select warm and cool blues that would work together.

Jane Blundell is and Australian watercolourist whose blog is my favourite colour resource. Here's her take on warm blues.

I selected Indanthrone Blue and for the cool blue, Pthalo Turquoise and Pthalo Blue.  Here are my clingfilm tests for the two blues combined with the Quin gold.

Quin gold and Indanthrone Blue

Quin gold with Pthalo Turquoise and Pthalo blue

And all the colours on the page with plastic wrap for texture

Waiting for the details

Details in progress