Leaves, wet-in-wet

 

“Leaves, wet in wet, purples” ©Jill Rosoff 2012.  12″ h x 6″ w

This painting came out of a demonstration I wanted to do for my watercolor workshops exploring wet-in-wet and dropping in color.  It was also to show the physical properties of water in watercolor, and how it can be used, exploited, but also how it can be a great tool.   I lightly sketched the leaf shapes onto the paper first.  Then one by one, I painted each leaf in clear water, then dropped color into the wet areas with strong watercolors, diluted enough to make the paint liquid but to hold on to the intensity of the color.  As each drop of color spread out when it hit the wet paper, I dropped more color into the tips and the stem to hold on to that intensity of color.  It was lots of fun to do, but what was truly fun was watching my students observe what the paint does as the water dries.  

This piece is now for sale via my shop on Etsy.  If you’re looking for holiday gift ideas, you can now purchase a gift card for my shop on Etsy and let the person your giving the gift to choose what they want!

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Pansies

“Purple Pansies”, ©Jill Rosoff 2010, 6″ x 11 3/4″, framed, $185.00

I picked up a pansy plant last spring as a subject for the budding (pun coincidental) artists that are in my watercolor workshops.  I forgot to take it with me, so there it was waiting for me on my painting table when I got home.  I started a painting of it back then, blocking in the flowers before they bloomed and faded.  And then the painting got buried under other paintings I was working on.

Last week I unearthed the painting and started working on it once more.  Since I’d only blocked in the flowers, it was interesting to see where the painting would go since the ‘model’ had long since been planted in my garden.  The blossoms had been elucidated in a wet-on-wet technique.  I set them onto a patterned background done in drybrush.  An interesting juxtaposition, yes?