Category Archives: Mystery Technique

Mystery Technique

Mystery Technique #152

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

ANSWER TO MYSTERY TECHNIQUE #151:

I started with an abstract underpainting of diluted acrylic ink. After this layer dried, I masked out tree shapes with clear contact paper and applied loose washes of granulating watercolors with pipettes, mixing the colors wet-in-wet. I also added some Winsor & Newton Granulation Medium to increase the texture.

I let this layer dry, then continued using pipettes to paint the trunks. To create the texture of fine spatters, I rewet parts of the painting and scraped flecks of Inktense Blocks over the wet surface.

Mystery Technique

Mystery Technique #151

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

ANSWER TO MYSTERY TECHNIQUE #150:

You can add more texture to your paintings with Derwent Inktense Blocks! I started by using pipettes to create several layers of undulating shapes with diluted yellow and blue acrylic inks, mixing them wet-in-wet to make various greens. After these dried, I painted the background with a pale mixture of yellow, green and blue watercolors plus some Winsor & Newton Granulation Medium. Next I quickly shaved off flecks of yellow, blue and magenta Inktense Blocks with my painting knife. These stuck to the wet paint and added floating specks of color on top of the other layers. 


Mystery Technique

Mystery Technique #150

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

ANSWER TO MYSTERY TECHNIQUE #149:

This technique combines granulating watercolors with rubbing alcohol!  First I created a wet-in-wet mixture of Lunar Blue and Rose of Ultramarine. While the paint still had a wet sheen, I quickly added multiple drops of rubbing alcohol. The alcohol pushed the water away, leaving behind a series of nesting circular shapes.