Sunday Sketches – Red Parrot Pea

Sunday Sketches

I don’t have a completed piece for Sunday Sketches this week. I had a migraine yesterday which blew out the day for most things productive, and this morning I spent buying art supplies from our local hardware superstore (hardware stores are so man-land, I find them intimidating). I now have a pile of boards waiting to be primed and a small stack of a variety of sized canvases to play with. ::rubs hands together eagerly::

I did finish a painting late last night, part of my recently reinstated Black Forest Project, and I’m happy to have that moving again. I’ve also got a new pastel painting in mind, which I hope to sketch up after I tidy my art desk tonight (it’s going to be a late night as it is already 10.20pm).

What I do have to show you here is a work-in-progress watercolour pencil experiment.

Red Parrot Pea Work-in-Progress
Red Parrot Pea, work-in-progress, watercolour pencil, approx. 200 x 200 mm.

Traditionally, I’ve used watercolour pencil for very precise works. For example, Lotus, which I completed back in 2004.

Lotus

Lotus, watercolour pencil, approx.  500 x 1000 mm.

Which took hours of work, layering and relayering colour until is was just right (or as right as I could get it). Labour intensive and while the results can be nice, they take a lot of work.

So the Red Parrot Pea is very slapdash. I threw down this layer of pencil quickly and sketchily. I want to see if I can be equally flamboyant with watercolour as I have been with acrylics and not make mud. It is an experiment. Last time I tried, I got really involved with the subject and it ended up much more realistic than I intend for this one to be. But then I’m still defaulting to the realistic whether I plan to or not. Will have to see what happens.

I hope everyone is enjoying their Sunday Sketches.

Nutty
(that desk is going to be clean if I have to stay up all night…that’s the problem with working in pastel, the dust gets everywhere)