ACEOs 6-10

More ACEOs! 

There's a huge gap between paintings here (and a big silence on this blog): I had a family tragedy in June and I lost my motivation to do anything. I tried to carry on as "normal" and it didn't feel right. I needed some time to just be a human blanket pile in my spare time, so I had it. 

I bought a Deck Box during the course of this batch of paintings because I couldn't deal with the mini paintings scattered everywhere, so now they have their own little white box to live in. I'd highly recommend them to anyone who does ACEOs. They're the perfect storage containers for them, and it'll be a long while before I've filled mine up. 

6.

11/06/2015

Cotman watercolours. I decided to try the waterbrush again with something a bit more sketch-like, and this was the result! It blotted an area of the fence without my permission, but otherwise was fine to use. I'm much happier with this than I am with the last waterbrush test.

7.

12/06/2015

Cotman watercolours. More of the waterbrush, and I used the exact same colours for this as I did for the previous one. I still had mixes leftover on the palette and the colours were so beautiful that I didn't want to waste them. I'm less happy with this one, but I think I've found my favourite bright green mix (sap and cobalt). 

8.

07/07/2015

Cotman watercolours, white gouache, Copic multiliner and clear wax crayon. This was a test for using a wax crayon on a water painting. It doesn't really work so well when the painting is this tiny. The wax was a bit overpowering, but it was certainly fun to try and I'd rather have tried it for the first time on an ACEO than a large piece that had taken ages to prepare for paint. Using the ACEOs like this was one of the reasons I bought them, after all. I used the waterbrush again for this one. 

9.

18/07/2015

Cotman watercolours. The tree went wrong pretty early on, but this was a very quick scribble done while another was drying, so it was never going to be all that great. I didn't have anything planned, I just wanted to play.

10.

01/11/2015

Cotman watercolours and white gouache. This is my first try at painting something like this. Apart from the too-large blobs (let the initial spatter dry before reworking some of the dots!), I quite like how it turned out. It was a lot of fun to do. It could do with more contrast in the lighter areas, but for a first go I'm fairly happy with it. It's the first time I've tried using white gouache with a toothbrush and the effect is perfect for things like this. Adding the gouache is a bit scary; if it goes wrong, like it did, it's usually impossible to fix. I thought it would be better to leave it as it is than to try and amend the blobs.