60 days done

I arrayed my watercolor circles from #the100dayproject and took a photo. 60 out of a 100 done. I don’t know if this is telling me much. But it is a joyful discipline. And I’m spending more time in my art room. I called it a “workroom” the other day. I like the sound of that. “Studio” doesn’t sound right. I think spending time in there is providing impetus for other projects, priming the pump.

Sometimes I drop extra water onto my painting after it’s finished. Then I let it do its thing. It has been fun to feel that water is a partner in this project.

I enjoy paying attention to the edges. The edge is really where a lot of the action is. There is a pencil line at the edge, where I trace the circle shape on to the blank precut watercolor paper. square I like how the watercolor looks when it strays over the pencil line. If I’m painting wet-in-wet, which I do mostly, the water pools up along the edge. I don’t like this and I blot it with the brush. When the paint is dry, I enjoy trimming the circle shape out of the squarish card of paper. Trying to stay on the circle line.

I enjoy how they are piling up and I really have nothing in mind as far as a use for them.

I enjoy the small brainstorming of which color(s) to use that happens every morning. A little bit of curiosity. What would happen if…?

I enjoy the challenge of trying to move from complete wet-in-wet to leaving some dry areas and – gasp – even a little white space. My initial tendency was to treat the whole circle the same, just dropping in some color splotches. My techniques have grown a little more varied. Still not a fan of white space.

I am not leaning toward the figurative. One circle has a faint outline of a tree, but it feels like too much pressure to try to paint something recognizable. It doesn’t matter if I don’t.

Cleaning my palette and rewetting paint on the palette has become a big, but invisible, part of the exercise. It is a thrill to finish up a glob of paint from the palette. And not a thrill, rather discouraging in fact, to realize that no matter how memorable that color seems, in a few days I will have forgotten what it was.

I make notes on the back every day with the date, the number, and the colors used (as far as I can remember). It’s part of the ritual.

Sometimes I contemplate introducing something else, another tool like ink, or a stencil, or a bit of collage. I usually nix these ideas almost immediately. I have my hands full with watercolor and I don’t want to overload the project.

My favorite circle so far is the second from bottom, fourth from right. A combination of Payne’s gray and Monte Amata Natural Siena. Closeup below. The blend and granulation and amount of water were just right and resulted in some rivulets of light and glimmers of gold. I could get lost in this landscape.