Can watercolor sketching improve my pastel painting? Even though I feel my experiments in oil and mixed media have improved my pastel painting, I am not sure watercolor will help. Marla Bagetta, a wonderful pastel artist, feels that watercolor sketching is very helpful as an exercise.

Before we go any further, I want to make it clear that I am NOT a watercolor artist! I am talking about using watercolor to add color to sketches and not completed works of art. This can be done at home or plein air. I am doing this as a skill builder.

Watercolor artists who are purists must think in a different way from artists who work in opaque mediums. They preserve the white of the paper for the lightest areas and they work light to dark. This is the reverse from my usual way of thinking and it drives me nuts. So, you won't be surprised that I will have white gouache with me when I give this a go. Gouache is an opaque medium that is water soluble like watercolor. White gouache can restore the white that I will probably lose.

I am trying this because I need a very compact and lightweight plein air alternative to pastel or oil. I have also become intrigued with the process by artists like Marla Bagetta and James Gurney.

I wanted a system that was easy to set up and would allow me to stand while I paint. Here is a picture of my basic equipment and it is clear where I got it. This was a gift that I received many years ago. I almost threw it out on several occasions because it did not seem useful. But then, I never thought I would be using watercolor like this. The bag is 7 x 9 in. and 3 inches deep when packed. The packed bag and notebook combined weigh 2 1/2 lbs.

I had some fun decorating the cover of a watercolor journal with mono print collage and modeling paste.

This is how the opens. In the top compartment I have two water pots, a sponge and towel. In the bottom section I have tape and my 12 color Sakura Koi watercolor field sketch box.

The inner velcro pouch in the third photo above opens to look like this. There are places for pens, pencils, spray water bottle, brushes and gouache.

I wanted a system so that I could stand and have everything I need to sketch. This velcro inner pouch attaches to velcro in the main compartment and all of it attaches to my waist with a built in strap with buckle. It is very much like an elaborate hip pack. This is how it looks on me.

Every thing is easy to reach and it is very lightweight! You can see the two open water pots and a towel at the top. I hold the sketchbook and a cardboard extension holds my paints. The extension is just a heavy duty chipboard clipped to the sketchbook.

I tried this at home and it worked well. I could stand and move around with ease. I can rotate the watercolor tin if I want and it can be put on either side of the book. When outside I will probably also tape it to the cardboard.

All of this and more fits into a plein air bag. In that case I can also easily transport my sunscreen, bug spray, water bottle and camera.

I will soon be trying plein air watercolor sketching. I hope to use the sketches as references for studio pastel painting. I am hoping that this process will help me with simplification, negative painting, edge control, and accurate drawing.

I welcome any advice you may have and please share your system and experiences.

More to follow.

Sue and Suzy, the artist with the split personality

www.sueflanagan.com

In a previous blog I showed how I experimented with making mono-prints with soft pastel and acrylic mediums  on a Gelli plate. I put powdered Pan Pastel on the Gelli plate and then poured some acrylic blending medium to liquefy the pastel. Then I spread it on the plate with a brayer and printed the image on mulit media paper. I brushed transparent gesso over the dry print so that I would have some tooth for further applications of pastel.  

I had no preconceived subject matter in mind when I created these prints. My goal was to look at them and discover the subject matter in the colors and patterns. I have now done three completed paintings from this process. Refer to my last post for "Night Lights." www.sueflanagan.com/blog/155364/experiments-in-pastel-painting

Here is another one of the prints that I developed. It seemed very clear to me that it was wood. It looked like a very old shed door. One area even looked like a door knob.

I used soft pastel to develop the painting trying to apply as little as possible. I wanted the under painting that was the pastel mono-print, to show and do most of the work. This is the final painting after I applied soft pastel. It is called "The Old Shed Door."

I asked my Facebook friends for feedback on another print. Several people saw a water scene and that spoke to me as well. However, exactly what type of water scene should it be? I thought about water fowl in water or water lilies. I imagined fishermen that I recently saw at Papoose Lake. But, all of it seemed forced to me. I walked away from it and when I came back an idea came to me. The white areas looked like cloud reflections and there could be some reflections of vegetation. Can you see that?

I added some soft pastel and then used pipe foam insulation to rub it gently into the paper for a dry under-painting. This established the big shapes for me. I know it is hard to visualize but I know where this is going. I like putting other colors into my greens to make it more interesting.

I got so involved in painting that I forgot to take another picture of the process. Here is the final painting. This is a 9 x 12 in. pastel painting called "Reflected Light." Almost half of this is barely touched The blue water area is mostly the pastel mono-print.

I am finding this process to be great fun and a way to exercise my imagination. It also makes for a loose rendering. I hope this sparked your imagination.

Sue and Suzy, the artist with the split personality

www.sueflanagan.com