Creating Water

Water can be a notoriously difficult effect to get, and I regret the hap-hazard way I painted it the other day without stopping to think how water actually looks. And so, I've spent the day looking at different methods and combinations of materials to -hopefully- recreate a vaguely plausible/representative watery look.

My ink & acrylic splooshy mess from the the other day: 

I like it, but I don't feel like it's as good as it could be. I find it very lacking and very, I don't know, mediocre? So I took some photographs earlier (in another post) so I could at least know what things really look like, even if I don't paint them as such:

Gouache, water colour and earth:

Gouache, acrylic, earth, ink, tissue and watercolour:

I sprayed it with some adhesive/fixative that came in a big can. I like it's splotty shinyness, but I really feel like I ruined the piece:

Ink applied with a stick and wetted down with a large brush:

Thus far, I feel another fatal flaw has been my lack of reference and my attempts at just making it. Fortunately, on the KEC Creative Arts blog there is a small feature on Gerhard Richter.

His expressive, abstract, runny paintings look a perfect fit. They're colourful yet sombre, simplistic yet quite eloquent (in a pictorial kind of way). So I started looking at how to blend the colours in this fashion to get the water I wanted.

Looking at streaking water onto paint, putting paint into streaked water, putting ink into streaked water, and streaking water over ink:

(Watercolours & ink)

Again using this picture:



Applying water to painted areas:

Applying water to much more heavily painted areas:

Applying water, paint and earth in layers:

Using a spatula to spread ink in layers:

Painting black sugar paper and then streaking layered acrylics with a stick:

I pressed white paper down onto the wet surface of the image above to pick up the prominent watery veins:

This is the back of the sheet above that I was rubbing as it was laid down, and I liked the faded fluid marks of my hands washing over it (like waves... hmmm...):

Thinking about this, Gerhard Richter's work very much reminds me of my 'seaweed' I made/painted the other day.

Richter: 

Seaweed:

However, Richter's combination streaks of colour better represent water than my awkward splashes- because water and all things are a myriad of colours that combine like scraps of paper that make a collage or shards of glass a mosaic.

And the collage/seaweed area suit better my purpose (remember that fairy tale I wrote and was illustrating?)

Once upon a time deep beneath the crystal sea:

Only the light is shining of this very badly because it's still very damp :(

I'll update tomorrow when the ink/paint/glue is all dried. And you can't stop me!

HA HA HA. Incessant posting forever and ever and ever!

I think that might be all today. Maybe.

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