TREES AT CANYON EDGE




I can't believe how much fun I'm having with Yupo and watercolor!! This one started out to be Joshua Trees in the desert - LOL! Yupo really dictates what it wants to be -- so, trees at the edge of a canyon drop is what we have here! I really loved how the paint for the tree bark reacted. I keep forgetting to tell the sequence of painting these. . . choose the subject or photo ref first (I don't know why, because it doesn't turn out to be that anyway), choose your palette and squirt some paint in the pans (keep it moist -I'm covereing my palette with Press and Seal plastic wrap), spray the Yupo with a bit of water (enough so there are visible drops all over, but not running), using a large flat brush apply the pigments to the Yupo (do NOT add water to the pigments in the palette pans), squish and stroke the paint all over the Yupo putting your colors in the basic area that the photo ref shows you. Let dry. After it dries, see what it wants to be and then proceed by lifting paint and/or adding paint. Squirt with water - just a little fine mist. Let dry in between each layer and add a few little details if you want and call it done!

Dark Woods Stream on Yupo

Woa! Impressionistic, Dark, Bold!! This is something VERY different for me!! I LOVE working on Yupo and I think it's because it forces me to be loose. I love how the paint chooses where it's going to flow and you either follow the paint or suffer frustration. I viewed a fantastic video last night called "Dancing with Yupo" by a wonderful artist, Taylor Ikin. Taylor teaches how to lay down heavy paint and then add brush strokes and water and really just let it do it's own thing. You can coax a little here and there and model the paint here and there, but ultimately the paint is going to decide what the painting turns out to be. This was fun and certainly not even close to what I would hope it would be, but I'm satisfied with it as my first attempt at this style. Take a look at Taylor's work here http://www.taylorikin.com/index.htm I think you will be blown away!