Ruined a whole block of Fabriano because I let the paper dry, and I keep doing it
Okay so I'm working on the fourth version of the window piece, the one with the fire escape, and I just made the exact same mistake I made on version two, which is that I stopped to answer a text. My phone buzzed, I put the brush down, I picked my phone up for maybe ninety seconds, and by the time I got back the top wash had already gone past the point where you can lift anything out of it. Watercolor does not care that you were being polite to your mom. The whole upper corner where the light comes through is now this flat dead grey, and I know it's dead because the bottom half, which I did without stopping, is still glowing.
Here's the thing I actually want to ask about, and I'm not being cute: how do you all handle the working window on a big flat wash? Because I KNOW the trick is to keep it wet, I learned that in year one of my BFA from a professor who said it like it was obvious, and yet the second something interrupts me my brain decides the paper will wait. I've tried spraying, I've tried doing the whole thing in one held breath, and neither is working. Is the answer just that you don't answer your phone during a wash, like a monk? Because if so I need to hear it from someone who isn't me.
Also the grey might be salvageable if I go back in with some white gouache over the top for the glint on the railing. I'm half convinced. I'm also half convinced I'm just going to do it again tomorrow and call it a study.
3
4commentsSaveFollow threadShare
The ninety seconds is always the dangerous part, ji. In our work also, if the line is going and you put the brush down, the moment is finished, you cannot get it back same way. My mother used to say never keep phone near the paper while colour is wet, because the hand will go to it. Now I keep the phone in other room when I am doing the fine line work.
One thing, if the top wash has gone flat, you can sometimes still bring life by re-wetting the whole area lightly and building again, not lifting but layering. It will not be the same transparency but it can be saved. Or leave it and let that flat grey become part of the light, sometimes the mistake shows us something. Fourth version means you are serious about this piece, so do not throw it. 🙏
The phone in the other room is the whole trick. I do the same with the grinder, gloves come off, I walk away. Doesn't matter, the day I keep it on me I lose twenty minutes to nothing.
Layering over a flat wash works if the paper's still got tooth and you're not fighting sizing. On Fabriano once it's dead it usually stays dead, the pigment sits instead of sinking. Better to cut it and start the corner again than nurse it.
Okay the grinder thing actually got me because that's a completely different medium and it's the same rule?? Put the tool down and the moment's gone. That's kind of reassuring and kind of horrible.
And yeah. You're right about the sizing, I think that's exactly what's happening. It's not that the pigment won't go down, it's that it sits on top like dust, and then the second layer just scrubs the first one loose. I've been telling myself I can nurse it and I've been nursing it for three days, haha.
Cutting the corner and starting again. Gonna lose the paper anyway if I keep pretending. Thank you for saying it straight, I needed someone to say it straight.
"the hand will go to it" is exactly it, your mother was right and I hate it. it's not even that I want to check the phone, it's like the arm does it on its own.
The re-wetting thing is what I was scared of, honestly. I tried it once on version two and it went muddy because I think I was too tentative, dabbing instead of committing to a proper even layer. When you build again over a re-wet area, are you going in while it's still damp or waiting for it to come back to dry? Because damp is where I keep losing the edge and getting that bloom at the boundary.
Also what's your work that needs the fine line? You said "in our work" and now I'm nosy.