Category Archives: Mystery Technique

Mystery Technique

Mystery Technique #114

April 20, 2022 – 6:23 pm

Curious about the techniques used here? You can learn more next month if you’ve signed up for email updates!

ANSWER TO MYSTERY TECHNIQUE #113:

Amazing things can happen if you use lots of water on unstretched paper! Instead of drawing the edges of shapes with pencil, I defined them with plain water, blotting with a dry paper towel to make corrections. Next I added a lot more water to make the paper buckle into hills and valleys before dropping in diluted acrylic ink. As the water slowly evaporated, it left behind a record of its interaction with pigment and paper, echoing the traces water leaves behind in the landscape. After this layer dried, I added more dark to increase depth and painted the background. Can you spot the places I used watercolor pencils to mimic the linear patterns that naturally occurred?

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Mystery Technique

Mystery Technique #113

March 20, 2022 – 10:07 pm

This painting has a secret. Find out more next month if you’ve signed up for email updates!

ANSWER TO MYSTERY TECHNIQUE #112:

The secret ingredient in this painting is acrylic gloss medium. I painted branching shapes on the paper with water, then added diluted medium. After it started to dry, I added more water to the branching shapes, which pushed the remaining medium to their edges. When this layer dried completely, it acted as a partial resist to the watercolor I painted on top, creating ghostly shapes that fade in and out of the paper and add different degrees of depth. Here’s another closeup:

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Mystery Technique

Mystery Technique #112

February 20, 2022 – 10:00 pm

Curious about the techniques used here? You can learn more next month if you’ve signed up for email updates!

ANSWER TO MYSTERY TECHNIQUE #111:

Vinyl is the key to this mystery! I started by getting the whole piece of paper wet, then mixed diluted watercolors on the surface before placing a sheet of clear vinyl on top. By partially lifting the vinyl several times, I was able to trap different sizes and shapes of air bubbles underneath. As the water slowly evaporated, watercolor pigment became more concentrated and darkened the edges of the bubbles.

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