Hello 

Welcome to the FLOAT-YOUR-PIGMENT Newsletter #134, Wet-into-Wet Larger Scale

Last Thursday I had the pleasure of demonstrating for the Geneva Lake Arts Foundation in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. There were a great bunch of artists watching as I tried demonstrating something I had never done before. I worked on a large sheet of paper that was soaked and then placed on plexiglass. I was a little worried about the technique and how it would play out in a demonstration. You can read and see the demonstration below. 

Next week on December 14th The Lakes Region Watercolor Guild will have their December meeting where the meeting is split into 2 parts. The first part will be me demonstrating for an hour and the second part will be the members painting cards for the Camp Quality Foundation, which helps kids with cancer.
I have decided to demonstrate on hot press which is something I paint on in my studio but have never used to demonstrate with. This should be fun or a complete disaster....stop on by to see what happens. LRWG.ORG

BeckerArt Gallery/Studio/Classroom Report: Nothing to report since I have not been able to get to the gallery in a week. Hoping to get into the gallery this week and work on a hanging system, still trying to figure it out.

Yes to Class at the Civic Center Libertyville, Thursday Dec. 7th
Yes to Class at The Antioch Fine Arts Foundation, Thursday Dec. 7th

When you take one of my workshops one of the exercises I teach is to work wet-into-wet on a sheet of thin watercolor paper that is placed wet on a sheet of plexiglass. The reason for this lesson is to teach students to control the amount of pigment they need to control their watercolor wash. It is also great because it turns 90lb paper into 900lb paper depending on how thick your plexiglass is.

This technique is very effective because the sheet of paper will stay wet for a long period of time, giving the student time to learn how much pigment is needed to control their brush strokes.

Normally with this lesson I have my students use a quarter sheet of 90lb paper that measures 11" x 15". The demonstration I did below was twice that size and at first it had me a little worried that it would dry before I could finish the first wet-into-wet wash. I am happy to report the paper stayed wet the entire time and there was no problems with the big size affecting the technique. 

When soaking the paper and then appling it to the plexiglass make sure there are no air pockets under the paper. You can usually brush the air pockets to the edge to get rid of them. Try to cover the paper with an even coat of water. This can be done by brushing back and forth all over the paper with a large brush.

Make sure you have fresh paint on your palette so you can pick up enough pigment so you can control the amount of pigment needed to achieve softness and hardness on the edges.

Plexiglass can be purchased at most building supply stores or hardware stores. I have found plexiglass in framed work of art at Goodwill or a resale shop, usually you can tell it is plexiglass because of the scratches on the surface.

It's a great lesson, give it a try.