My Watercolor Setup

Sorry for the mix up and the disappearing post. Hopefully I can re-write this.

I took a class a couple of weeks ago on watercolor painting from the excellent Steven Kozar who lives not that far away down in McFarland. I got quite a few good ideas and hints that I'm putting to use and here is a quick shot of my workspace.

Things I've learned:

• Stretching my paper on foamcore boards. I took a full sheet of foamcore and cut it into quarters, stacked them and then wrapped them in packing tape to keep them water resistant. I then soak my paper in water for twenty minutes and then staple the paper to the wrapped board for it to dry. It's much lighter and cheaper than using plywood which is another method I've heard of.
• Using a cheap kitchen sponge to wick off excess water and paint off of the brush. 
• Cut open a large plastic bottle to hold your brush cleaning water. This prevents your brush from getting too contaminated from the dirty water.
• Use thin layers of paint to get clean gradients of color.

It was a fun class and I'm thinking of taking one of his oil painting classes when it comes up in the fall.

View Steven Kozar's Art

Tale of Two Ceruleans

One of the more interesting things I've learned while getting back into painting is the concept of pigments instead of colors. As you can see from the color swatches I made from two Cerulean Blue paints - the one on the left from M. Graham and the one on the right from Winsor & Newton - that they're not quite the same.

Investigating this more, I find that the pigments that make up the paints are different. The paint from Winsor and Newton uses pigment PB35 which is actual Cerulean Blue. The paint on the left from M.Graham is pigment PB36 which is Cobalt Chromite Blue Green Spinel! The difference is that true Cerulean Blue pigment is very granular and you can see the rough surface it creates on the paper on the right. This granularity was 'solved' by M. Graham by using a different material all together.

Though I have to wonder why they used the Cerulean Blue name, perhaps because it's much more recognizable!