Hibiscus On Yupo
Well this was fun!! I've seen some watercolor work done on Yupo on the WetCanvas site and have been quite intrigued with it. It is not paper at all, but plastic with an extremely smooth surface. It IS sold as "suitable for all watercolor techniques." Since it is plastic, the paint and/or water does NOT penetrate it - it just kind of floats around until it dries. If you don't like something, you just wipe it off with a tissue - ha. Of course, if you want it to last, a fixative would have to be used on the finished work. I bought my Yupo from Dick Blick, but it is available from other suppliers as well. Because I have a tendency to be the controller, this was really a step out of my comfort zone as the watercolor is the controller and I became the controllee. Some Wetcanvas tips I remembered as I was going along with this are 1) Do NOT touch the area you will be painting. Skin oil puts a protective shield on the plastic and the paint will not adhere--you can see the white areas on this where my fingers touched the surface, but it was a happy goof because I rather liked the splotches! 2) Lay down the paint and move it around with a brush, or tilt the paper this way and that and let it run 3) To layer, make sure undercoat is completely dry, with a light touch apply the next layer. Once liquid is applied, the undercoat will become liquid again so much care needs to be taken. 4) If you totally goof, wipe it clean with wet tissue, Qtip or just dunk it in the sink and completely wash it off. 5) Do NOT use a blowdryer to dry it - Yupo can and will melt. A blowdryer on cool setting would probably not melt it, but it might make the paint run in places you don't want it. All in all, this was quite a liberating experience for me and I am eager to try this Yupo with some other mediums--wonder how permanent ink sketching would look - hmmmm.