I’ve discovered Aquabord™!

Refreshment–watercolor on board

Contentment–watercolor on board

Companionship–watercolor on board

Aquabord™ comes from the same company that makes the more familiar Claybord™, which is what I thought I would try until I discovered that Blick’s doesn’t carry it anymore in the size I wanted. So instead of oils, I’m using watercolors for this small-scale (5″ x 7″) experiment which I started a couple of days ago, and what a surprise! The board soaks up watercolor similar to the way a hot press watercolor paper would, except a lot faster. The surprise comes from the fact that you can lift the color right off, all the way down to the white base if you want to–along with your mistakes! This means you also have to be careful not to get overly exuberant or you will be lifting off color that you preferred to stay put, but for me I’d much rather have to paint over something I accidentally lifted off than not be able to fix my multitudinous mistakes! So, no hair dryer, no masking, and the colors stay brilliant rather than fading into that pallid state that happens so often with paper. When finished, the artwork can be protected with a variety of spray materials on the market and the panel can be hung on the wall “as-is” or framed in a simple photo frame. Durable, economical, everybody wins!