Thursday, May 29, 2014

Watercolour mosaics

I love playing with watercolour, I guess that's no news. I do a lot of experimenting with patterns and doodles both in my journal and in the Fodder Book. The Fodder Book is an A4 sized watercolour moleskine and I really love that book.

Sometimes I will work directly in watercolour and sometimes I will outline a pattern first in a hard pencil. Why a hard pencil? Because it's so light you hardly see it after the paint has been added.

In my last couple of additions to the Fodder Book I decided to work very precise and careful. I started out by making this:


I used a ruler and a circle template for the lines and after that it was just a matter of colouring it in.

I don't know why but somehow this made me think of mosaics and made me wonder if I could do a mosaic like pattern in watercolour. So out came the ruler again and I started with making a simple grid. Then for some of the squares I started using different lines and shapes so they would be 'out of order'. The basic squares I painted in two alternating colours, like a chess board and the 'out of order' ones I painted in two other alternating colours so they would stand out a little. 

Here's how that turned out:




I really like the subtle way these tone on tone colour combinations work. When I posted one of them on Facebook somebody said they would look nice on a silk scarf and I think that might be true. Who knows, one day I might give it a shot. For now I just love making these patterns for the joy of it.

Wishing you all a wonderful and artsy day. I'm starting a five day weekend today, so I'm even more spoiled than usual.