Unfolding of the Cosmic Rose

Watercolor on Arches CP paper, 22"x30". I wanted to try out a couple new colors in this painting. I purchased some Ultramarine Red dry pigment from Sinopia Pigments, and made some up into watercolor paint. The pigment is a little odd to work with, requiring a lot of medium to keep from looking chalky. The pigment was labeled "Antique Pink," on the package, which describes it well. There is a slight earthiness to the color. In fact, when damp, the color has a definite brownish cast, which disappears when it is completely dry. This unfortunate effect had me a bit scared a couple times while I was painting. I wanted a somewhat earthy look, but not actually brown. I used the color, mixed with varying amounts of Ultramarine Blue, for most parts of the rose. Also, a friend gave me a sample of Daniel Smith's Rhodonite Genuine watercolor paint. I found Rhodonite to be a rich, velvety-looking pink that worked well in the darker areas, near the center of the rose. Other colors used on the rose are Pyrrole Orange, Cerulean Blue, and Quinacridone Gold. For the "cosmic" background, I first painted with Mars Black, then topped it with Daniel Smith's Sugilite Genuine, which has a lustrous lavender sheen.

Watercolor - Sunflower Field

This is a watercolor painting on Fabriano Artistico HP paper, 20"x16". I made my own Chromium Green Oxide paint from Gamblin pigment powder and used it on the leaves, stems and flowers. It is a very gritty pigment and tends to scratch the paper when brushing it on. It's very opaque and rather neutral colored, but it mixes well with yellows and blues and works well in glazes. I like the fact that it is easy to shape into fine details, and it doesn't tend to form hard edges.

I also used a lot of Terre Verte from Winsor and Newton. This color is also very useful for shaping fine details. It takes a lot of paint to take it to a dark value, so Terre Verte helps prevent accidentally making an area too dark while working out the details of a light-valued area (in this case, the palest areas of the leaves).

I used Daniel Smith's Primatek color Piemontite Genuine as the initial glaze for the sunflower centers. The color somewhat resembles Mars Violet; however, it is a bit richer in maroon and brown hues. It's very granular and easy to sculpt into natural looking 3D textural shapes.

Adventures in New Pigments

I could not resist the allure of Daniel Smith's Primatek line of natural mineral watercolors. I used a great deal of Bloodstone Genuine on this, both for the very dark background as well as in the petals of this pincushion flower, mixed with cobalt blue. Bloodstone Genuine is reddish-black and gritty and granulates in washes like iron filings do around a magnet, with tiny "rays" of pigment shooting in different directions.

Serpentine Genuine peeks in just a bit in the leaves, mixed with green-gold. It is a lovely earthy green color with tiny flecks of red that float around in the washes. Also, Daniel Smith's Quinacridone Gold shows its range of deep russet gold to pale yellow in the pollen grains. This painting looks almost like a rising full moon when viewed in a darkened room. Once again, it's painted on Fabriano Artistico 11"x14" hot press paper. It was completed in March, 2011.