21, but only drinking pond water

 

Sky Pads 21, background color wash and drawing

There was one warm-ish day a week or so ago, and I took advantage of it. Normally I pour paint washes on a really hot day, around 90F so that the pigment will pull together as the paint thinner rapidly dries and create nice striated patterns in the preliminary wash. 50F wasn’t exactly what I wished for, but it was what I had. So I decided to try the pour anyway and see what happened. Otherwise I would be waiting till summer for my next Sky Pads rendition.

It’s hard to see both on the canvas and in the photo, but I did get some delicate results. I’m glad I kept this layer thin so that I can put a really thin layer of lily pads over it like I did in Sky Pads 17. I cribbed the lily pads from #17 also, and when I have them blocked in I’ll let you know exactly what I did. It’s sort of an emergency measure when you’ve run out of source material until your lily pads pop up in the pond next spring…

PS: I just got word I’ve been accepted into three art fairs this summer–really nice big ones! Best of all is at the Chicago Botanical Garden, which wants only botanical artwork and has a special “members only” preview on Friday night before the Saturday and Sunday event. Hope the members like water lilies!