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Thursday, March 05, 2020

Starting a Painting with an Abstract Underpainting

'Secret Garden'                11x14              pastel              ©Karen Margulis
available $225
 I was tempted to keep it as an abstract painting. I began the painting with a watercolor underpainting on printmaking paper. It was another experiment on different papers. I expected the watercolor to behave like watercolor.....run, drip and bloom. But once again it didn't move. (see my previous post about Multimedia Artboard) So instead of an ethereal drippy underpainting I was left with this:


the watercolor underpainting
I thought it was kind of interesting! I let it sit on my easel overnight. I wanted to leave it alone but I also wanted to paint the scene that inspired the underpainting.....a hidden garden of wildflowers amongst the rocks. The underpainting formed the bones for the painting and the clear gesso texture helped give the rocks texture.

I guess I will save my foray into the world of abstracts for another day!!

5 comments:

Kerry said...

Another stunner! I love these rock/mountain type paintings. When you use gesso, can you colour it with liquid water colour paint? Or can you paint with watercolour over mountboard that has had gesso added?

Karen said...

You can do it either way! I prefer to do the underpainting first then when it is dry add the clear gesso on top. It is opaque but does dry clear!

Pattie Wall said...

Thanks for the inspiration. This is an intriguing application of mixed mediums!

Kerry said...

Thanks Karen. I wasn't sure if mountboard would take water colour.

Karen said...

It will but it may not perform like it would on watercolor or even sanded paper. I would experiment on a scrap first.