Not Quite Identical Twins

Watercolor monoprint on Arches paper

Watercolor monoprint with colored pencil on Crescent board

The experiments with materials that might work plein air for the Beloit event continue. I painted this scene the other day on gessoed Arches paper, in a vertical format. These two horizontal versions were done by coating a 5x7 inches Plexiglass plate with Createx base, then painting with watercolors over the base. The first experiment with soaked Arches paper is a little too bright and crude for my taste. It took ages to dry, since I had soaked the paper so long. Since then I discovered I can keep a sheet of dampened paper moist by sandwiching it between sheets of plexiglass. A prepared sheet could be taken outside safely, clean and ready to print in this way. I also forgot to flip the image before working with it, since it is a print. Oops. It probably doesn't matter, and if I do the process on the spot the image will be backward no matter what.

The second version used Crescent board instead. I misted the board a bit before laying it on the plate, and the results were less garish than the first try. I liked it even better when I went back after it was dry and deepened some parts with colored pencil. I'm going to try both methods outside this weekend.