Wednesday, March 16, 2011

River rocks


If you follow this blog, you'll know that I often complete studies before I jump into a large piece.  This is a study for a painting of river rocks underwater.  It came about more as a doodle then I got involved in the detail and had to keep going.

I started with a watersoluble pencil on what was at hand at the time - a sheet of acrylic canvas.  This of course, is meant for painting using acrylics, and the texture affects drawing and watercolour which was used here.


I wanted to experiment with using the surface and texture to my advantage.  I found that while there is a granular effect with the watercolour settling into the weave of the surface, I can easily get back to a white surface with a wipe of a damp brush.  Its rather like Yupo or TerraSkin in that respect, thought I don't think I'll be using the acrylic canvas for a finished piece in watercolour.

But for now, the study works on any surface as I can work out colours and textures, but its made me consider whether yupo or terraskin might work more in my favour than watercolour paper.  It could save me a lot of time in masking light reflection lines.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

This is lovely Jeanette. I was surprised to read it is just a study.

Jennifer Rose said...

the texture of the canvas really adds a lot of interest to the rocks. this study looks more like a finished piece than a study to me :)

Christiane Kingsley said...

Very nice, Jeanette, and a most interesting post. I like the study and I really look forward to the larger piece.

Jeanette Jobson said...

Thanks Sue. Sometimes studies can get detailed. However the texture of this acrylic paper would not make it suitable for a final piece I think.

Jennifer, the texture makes the rocks look quite porous and that can be good, but the final piece in my mind is smooth. Its good to work out shapes and colours like this though.

Christiane, rocks always make interesting subject matter. This is only 9 x 12 and the final piece - well I'm not sure of the size yet, depends on my level of patience for all those rocks!