Darkening by mixing thick pigments is making my nocturnes lose the luminance that watercolors have. Ultimately I am coming to the conclusion that using pigments that are inherently dull and give a feeling of dusk/smoke are easier to apply as a thin layer and yet emote ‘darkness’. Schminke’s regular pigments don’t granulate, but I recently purchased Galaxy Pink – from their new Galaxy series of granulating paints. It’s this dusky pink that I use as base color for the rose in this painting. I could also darken my greens while warming them up with this pink. Potters pink when squeezed on the palette looks very similar. However, this pigment had more power and was enjoyable to mix with yellows, greens and orange.
You will notice that this time, I drew before I painted. Painting over a pencil drawing helps to take the pressure of design off the painter. Painting this way reduces the number of on the fly decisions required. Consequently, my palette was much cleaner at end of the painting. It took me 35 minutes to paint the painting that’s been squished into a minute in the video short.
