NEGATIVE WATERCOLOUR – KOI CARP, OUR FIRST PLUM CROP, AND A HEALTH UPDATE
Negative Koi Carp
This is a negative watercolour I have been wanting to do for some time. I used several unrelated images of koi carp from the internet as inspiration, and made my own composition and colouring.
Every picture goes through its ugly stage, but this one seemed to have several, and it was pretty unedifying for a while! You just have to push through, and have faith that all will be well in the end.
My paints
This was the first time I used my new Kuretake Art Nouveau set of watercolours for a project. I had already swatched them inside the lid of the box but hadn’t tried them for real.
One day I shall get around to doing a review of these paints, and also the Kuretake Graphite Colour set.
The Art Nouveau paints are quite opaque when applied thickly – a bit like gouache. When you dilute them they become much more transparent in the normal way for watercolours. I was able to use both qualities in this project.
The first wash
I did add a little positive colour to the first two fish of this layer because I already knew what colour I wanted them to be.
The second wash
As usual for negative painting, I covered the whole surface again with the darker colour, omitting the first two fish. I drew in the fish for the next layer.
The third wash
Pretty patchy painting, but I didn’t mind that – it would mostly get covered up, and where it showed on the fish, it just added texture. It was starting to look ugly!
The fourth wash
Definitely looking ugly now! Brown water? Not for long!
The fifth and final wash
For this one, I darkened the background with the Blue Graphite from the other Kuretake set. It doesn’t look very blue on the photo but in real life it looked a bit more blue. All the fish were now in place.
Adding some interest to the background
I was able to take advantage of the opacity of the paints for this, because you can’t normally layer a lighter watercolour on top of a darker one. I chose a turquoise blue and added some ripples and waves. Then I painted on some Perfect Pearls (Blue Raspberry colour) for a little shimmer. In case you don’t know, Perfect Pearls are mica powders that come in many different colours, some of which are interference colours. They contain a gum arabic binder so that they do not rub off once dry. They are extremely versatile. My favourite way to use them is as watercolours. I put a little of the powder into each section of an empty palette and carefully dropped water onto them. After mixing them, I left them to dry. They now behaved like regular pans of watercolour paint. I did this several years ago and the palette is always ready for use.
The picture was beginning to come out of its ugly stage!
Colouring the fish
This is where the picture really began to come to life. I love using the new paints with their rich pigments. I deliberately kept the smaller, background fish very dark and with fewer colours, to push them back. This gave the picture more depth.
The final stage
To finish the picture, I defined the edges of the fish with a fineliner, and added some detailing with pen work. I used a white acrylic marker for the eyes and for a few highlights. The final stage was to spatter some diluted Dr. Ph. Martin’s Bleed Proof white, using a fan brush.
The lighting in this final photo is a bit better, and shows the true colours.
It might be rather fun to paint some watercolour leaves, and scan and print them onto acetate, as an overlay. I shall think about that when I have completed my set of negative paintings. I intend to bind them into a little book, along with some other paintings using a different negative technique.
Our first plum crop
Two or three years ago we bought a little plum tree sapling for the garden. We have a lovely productive apple tree and thought we would enjoy some plums, too. Obviously it takes a few years for a tree to be mature enough to bear fruit, and this year we got our first crop! Here it is, in all its glory.
We promise not to eat it all at once.
Health update
I had a text message from the Exeter Hospital after my phone call from the off-sick surgeon’s secretary yesterday. She had told me my outpatient appointment would be on Thursday 1st October, and this would be confirmed by letter. The text message informed me that the date was Thursday 1st August, not October! More muddles… I looked up the calendar, and discovered that 1st October isn’t a Thursday, anyway!! They are hopeless… When she said October, I complained that it was supposed to have been after Easter, and what a long time I had to wait. She didn’t correct this and say, “I meant August, not October”! Very short notice, but my hubby has managed to rearrange the engagement he had for Thursday morning so he can take me. Honestly, I can count on the fingers of one hand the few times when the hospital hasn’t made a muddle over something. More news later.
