Paint, rinse, repeat

Museum columns WIP on approx. 9×12 Arches 140lb cold press

I’m working on a new technique taught by one of my wonderful teachers, Joan Iaconetti.  It’s all about painting more loosely, applying thick paint, spraying it with water, letting it run, drip, whatever. Go back and paint some more.

Spray. Blot. Drip, Dry.

Working on this painting sounds very much like a laundry commercial.   My laundry should be as much fun.   Luckily I was banned from doing the laundry many years ago by the Husband after I turned a few pairs of his white boxer-briefs a lovely, non-NYPD, pink.   Can’t change in the locker room with pink briefs.  Lucky for me the Husband is EXCELLENT at doing laundry.  And don’t even get me started on his folding abilities.  Every once in a while when he’s folding t-shirts while watching the hockey game he will call me over, show me some of the folds and then tell me to be careful just as he pretends he got the equivalent of a paper cut.   Oh he is amusing that Husband!

I’m enjoying this style of painting and hope to be posting more.  I used mostly paynes gray and at the very end added a bit of raw sienna and some phthalo blue.

New Jersey Mocks Me

Last week the husband and I had to go to New Jersey.   The “Garden State.”  Should be called “the Jug Handle State.”  Or the “No Left Turn” state.  Or “whatever plans you had on getting somewhere I’m gonna get you supremely lost” state.   Or… oh, you get the idea.

There is never a time where we don’t get lost in New Jersey.  One time I got lost in the parking lot of the mall across the road from my brother’s house.  I had to call him for help.  New Jersey really mocked me that day!

I don’t get lost that often.  Plus, I have a GPS system in my car.  Her name is Svetlana.  She talks to me and nicely tells me tells me that I have strayed from her carefully crafted route.  Her favorite word is “recalculating.” She always gets me back to where I want to be.  Except when in New Jersey.  The “evil state.”

I do not like to leave the City.  Being on the other side of the Hudson makes me nervous.  (Well everything makes me nervous, but that’s another post.)  And it never fails.  The moment we get through the tunnel or over the bridge and land in NJ we get lost.  What is up with that?

I don’t think anyone will ever figure out what is up with that.  It is, as my sister-in-law always tells me, what it is.   New Jersey, the “you can’t get there from here” state.

In my penultimate Wednesday watercolor class we painted trees.  We spattered trees, painted wet-on-wet trees, drybrushed trees.  We wet the paper with clear water in a “tree” design and then added some paint and lifted the paper and let the paint roll around the wet areas.   Since it’s Autum in New York, everyone is into the trees which are turning beautitful fall colors…red, yellow, gold.  I love seeing the autum trees.  But not in New Jersey.