This painting has two lives. Two years after it was painted, framed and hung, I began experimenting with watercolor mixed with Casein and applied over India ink. Note the dark red leaves above.

I was on a painting trip in my mobile home on the west coast of Michigan’s lower peninsula (accompanied by my three small dogs). While sitting at a picnic table in a campground, I began a wet-paint-on-wet-paper abstract watercolor, laying down various colors over the entire surface of the wet watercolor paper. I then took a wire door off one of the dog’s cages, placed it onto the wet paint, weighted it with a brick and took it inside the mobile home to dry. I then left the campground in search of a good lunch.

My mind was full of captivating, potential images I wanted to add to the painting. When I returned to camp, I looked at the painting. The lunch trip over bumpy roads caused all of the colors to mix together, changing them into grays with gray lines running through (notice the sky and Venetian blinds in the painting.) I flashed back to the rule that when you mix all the colors on the color wheel together in equal proportions, they create black. If mixed unequally together, they create degrees of gray. I painted the cows and scenery beyond the Venetian blinds in between the lines.

How did I create such lovely colors on top of gray? I will reveal that secret later in the narration.

Yellow Iris is one of the first paintings I did. It was an illustration from a "how to paint watercolors" book.  When I finished the painting, I was delighted and surprised how well it came out.  Originally, it was an iris with a blank, white background.

Again, several years later, I took it out and painted the entire background with black India ink. I then used white casein mixed with watercolors to create the images around the flowers. Casein is a water-based painting medium that was popular years ago and not known to many watercolorists today. It also is what I used to cover the gray area behind the Venetian blinds in the above Winnebago Drive-by painting. White casein paint is excellent for making watercolor corrections on the paper.

To make the correction, you remove as much color from the area by lifting and scrubbing. Lifting is the first step. Apply water with a brush over the image (without stroking it) and blot. Repeat this step several times until you no longer see any paint residue on the tissue you are using. If you skip this step, the fresh pigment would just re-paint the surface. Next scrub the area with water and brush until the area is as light as it can get without starting to remove some of the surface paper. Now you are ready to apply several very thin coats of casein (allowing it to dry between coats) until the area is returned to the color of the paper.

When I initially painted this watercolor, this zebra was nose to nose with another one, just as it appears in the herd on this zebra’s coat. I took the painting to my mentor to critique it. She suggested I cut off the zebra on the right because the format (“the shape, size and general makeup of a painting”) was too long. If anyone else suggested that, I would have resisted. The confidence I had in Lula’s talent, however, gave me no hesitation at all. Off it came.

The zebra’s ‘ancestral imprint’ now commands more of the viewer’s attention. I sometimes share with my students (as a group) about the expression “Follow directions and take what you get.”  To me, that means you may get satisfaction or you may get disappointment.  Then again, you may learn something new and get more for your money. If a new painter lucked out and did not make any mistakes in class, there would not be as much learning gained as those who did.

Notice the sky in this painting. I decided to give it a very pale red (pink) sky. That is because green is opposite of the primary color red on the color wheel. When you paint two colors next to each other that are opposite from each other on the color wheel, one will appear to move forward and the other recede back.

I painted the sky first. I let it dry.  Then I painted the distant pine trees over the sky area.

This painting was a class assignment.  The instructor made a ‘set up’ by placing a vase of tulips on a table.  The only instruction was to paint the picture using both warm and cool colors in an unusual way.

Most watercolor courses are three-hour sessions over several weeks.  Given the detail in this and most paintings, it was almost impossible to finish a 22” x 30” watercolor in just one or two sessions.  I (and many others) took unfinished paintings back home, put them aside and did not return to them.  That is why my beginning watercolor class assignments use 11” x 15” watercolor paper.  I personally know how intimidating it can be for a beginner to confront a large blank sheet of paper.

I want to discuss value in more detail because it determines if a painting will turn out ‘flat’ or with a lot of depth.

I began this watercolor by painting lilies and leaves on a piece of watercolor paper.  I then painted lilies on another piece of watercolor paper and cut them out, suspending them above the painting.

To create the long lavender flowers with yellow centers, I painted both sides of watercolor paper lavender and cut the paper into long strips.  I braided and glued the strips onto the painting.  Next, I added rice paper painted orange and glued to the back of, and extending beyond, the watercolor paper. The inside border with interrupted narrow lines was created by cutting those lines out of the top painting so that the rice paper positioned beneath it would show through.

Some paintings take only a short time to create while others can take hours, days, weeks, or longer.  It took just ten minutes to paint the majority of this watercolor.  I began by taping my brush to the end of a three-foot-long wood dowel and placing the watercolor paper on the floor.  I stood above the paper and painted wet strokes over the entire paper.  The results looked like woods, with a meadow and trees in the background.  The only things I added later were the leafless trees and the small splashes of red dots.

Prior to starting this painting, I applied gesso to the watercolor paper and let it dry.  Gesso is a medium oil painting artists use to prime their canvas prior to painting.  This technique lends a brilliant luster to the watercolors.

There are guidelines for watercolor painting that are useful in the learning process.  However, these rules are not always absolute.  One can manipulate, stretch or re-formulate them.

This watercolor demonstrates the general rule that red appears to move forward and blue recede back in a painting.  Therefore, I painted the irises in the foreground red, added blue to red to paint the middle irises purple, and painted the background irises blue. Notice that the sky has a deeper shade of blue surrounding the flowers.  The term “halo” is used for this effect. I then used gold-colored dimensional paint (sometimes referred to as fabric or puff paint), and outlined the leaves and added dots in the middle of the circles in the border.

I once had a futuristic-type dream in which I heard a voice audibly speak the word "avatron."  The word was referring to "dancing machines."  These machines resembled weight scales one sees in a doctor’s office. There were many of them located in a large dance hall and each machine had one person dancing on it.

I began this watercolor collage by painting the entire piece of watercolor paper black.  I then painted both sides of several types of paper for creating the rose petals and set them aside.  I wanted to create a mystery in this painting for future viewers to discover.  Therefore, I strategically placed and glued tiny photocopies of our family, friends, and pets onto the paper before gluing the rose petals around them.
 

Notice I incorporated bits of red and pink papers throughout the leaves for balance of color and added interest.

I began this watercolor by drawing the center flowers on the paper and painting them with watercolors.  I then painted the background area surrounding these flowers with black India ink.  When the ink dried, I mixed watercolors with titanium white casein, painting the remaining flowers over the black India ink to portray an illusion of a spotlight focusing on the center flowers.  Finally, I flooded the outside border area with water and painted in the warm colors. When dry, I added the small colored circles.

Watercolor painted rice paper (hand made paper) enhances the dimensions of these irises.

Adding salt to the sky immediately after painting it made the flowers appear to exude an aura of shimmering light.  As the paint dried, the salt crystals absorbed the surrounding paint, eliminating some of the color.  Different types of salt will product different results.

These are the evolution of man figures.  I drew the images on the watercolor paper.  Next, I placed a sheet of clear plastic over the images.  I then traced the outlines of each figure onto the plastic sheet, cut each image out and laid them aside.  These would be plastic stencils for each man.  Next, I painted the figures and, while they were still wet, placed each correlating plastic stencil over them.  This process blended and distorted the wet paint within each figure. Next, I painted the background around the images.  When everything was dry, I removed the stencils.

I painted the three borders last. To lend dimensionality to this work, I painted additional wavy lavender, green and blue lines on the inside of the glass for the frame, and suspended the glass two inches above the painting before framing it.

I first painted the figures and the green hills in the foreground with watercolor. Once dry, I applied thin layers of casein over the entire painting.  Next, I mixed watercolors with casein and developed the distant mountain range over the tops of the figures.  This faded them out and gave them an ethereal appearance.

I began this three-dimensional watercolor collage by painting orange tulips on a horizontal piece of watercolor paper.  Dissatisfied with the way the tulips were positioned, I turned the paper vertically and realized that the tulips almost looked like tropical fish (refer to the school of orange fish at the top of the painting).  I advise students to save their unwanted paintings.  They can always paint on the back of them or cut them up later for a collage painting.

The top was cut off of this first sheet of paper just above and around the tops of the orange fish.  Many small areas of this top painting were cut out so the viewer can see through it to a second full sheet of watercolor paper positioned four inches beyond it.  The second sheet was painted blue at the top, gradating to black on the bottom with additional fish and plants suspended between the two pieces of paper.

The finished work is the result of hundreds of hours devoted to developing this collage

This three-dimensional watercolor collage is comprised of two pieces of watercolor paper spaced two inches apart.  I began by creating the white dots.  I sprinkled Winsor & Newton art masking fluid over the paper.  Art masking fluid is a liquid that, once applied to paper, solidifies and protects the paper from watercolor paint.  After the painting was completed, I rubbed off the art masking fluid, allowing the protected white of the paper to re-appear.

I cut out the squares, working around the fish images.  What appears to be a thin dark border is not painted but rather cut out of the paper – making sure to cut around the images of fish and bulbous pink flowers that extended over this cut outline, so that the part of the painting within the red border would not fall out.

This three-dimensional watercolor consists of two separated pieces of watercolor paper.  Some flowers – along with the angel – are suspended above the painting, while others were cut out of the paper for a dark abstract view beyond it.  The border is lace over painted rice paper.