Activity 1.1: Part 2

CREATIVE SKETCHBOOKS LEVEL 2

MODULE 1, CHAPTER 1
Activity 1.1: Part 2

Right, as promised here is the second part of Activity 1.1. (Chapter 1), which should have been posted as one unit, but I had so much stuff on mark making, I split it. So here are painted marks on wet paper, colour washes, where I lacked knowledge and technique, and different types of paper, where I used what came to hand!
 

Wet Photocopier Paper: The bottom half of the paper was better, and gave a more impressionist effect, but it’s quite difficult predicting how the painted marks will react. Either there was more water on this bottom section, or my paint was wetter.

Wet Cartridge Paper 96gsm: I may have gone to the other extreme here and used too much water on the paper, or perhaps the paint was too watery, or the brush too wet. At any rate, there seems to be an awful lot of ‘bleeding’ of paint, and you can’t really see the original marks clearly.  

Wet Catridge Paper 230 gsm: Heavier quality paper definitely reacted differently – the paint smudged, but didn’t ‘bleed’ as much.  

Dry Colour Washed Cartridge Paper 230 gsm: I think my colour wash should have been much more watery, but it was fun painting marks over a painted surface. 
 

Most of the rest of the samples speak for themselves, but there were one or two surprises – I thought the blotting paper would soak paint up and just produce shapeless splodges, but it didn’t, and the results were quite nice (much better than sugar paper. And the shiny inkjet paper was lovely to work on, despite my fears that the paint would just form puddles on the surface – it gave quite good textured effects. In fact, the paint took fairly well on most surfaces, except the black tissue, which was a disaster. I knew the red paint wouldn’t show up that well on the black tissue, but I didn’t expect it to vanish the way it did! 

I found a pad of 300gsm water colour postcards among the art supplies from my elder daughter, and tried wetting this, then painting marks, but it didn’t seem to stay damp enough to produce any affect. Should I have made it wetter? Soaked it? Used wetter paint (it was pretty runny)? And do I paint immediately? Or let the water soak in? Or is this just the wrong sort of paper to damp down? And what happens if I slosh water over the painted marks?

And painting marks on top of a wet colourwash on 230gsm cartridge paper was fabulous. Again, I think the wash may have been too strong, and it would have been nice if the painted marks had run a bit more, but I think I got the idea a bit better here, so if I have time I’m going to experiment some more with wet paper, colour washes runny paint, and water!

By the way, any text that appears here on the blog, does appear in the sketchbook - longer pieces get stuck in, shorter pieces are handwritten. And I'm working on improvements to the wonky photos - it's down to a combination of pages not lying flat, and me not holding the camera straight!