Practice sheet

(C) 2018 Dale DiMauro

Any scrap of watercolor paper is valuable to me, assuming it is good quality paper such as Arches or Saunders which have been manufactured for centuries. If I lose interest in a watercolor for whatever reason I often turn it over and paint on the back. The other alternative is to divide the piece into smaller remnants which I can use as a test sheet for sampling color mixtures.

This is one of those test sheets. In fact, in this case, I used Arches watercolor paper which is a reliable friend where an artist can achieve an unlimited range of marks.

I had started a portrait on the back but had lost the excitement of how this watercolor was developing. Not only do I experiment with new color combinations but sample different brush techniques. For the speckled area in the sky I was experimenting with dragging the brush across the paper with a sharp angle. 

It is fun to just play with the pigments and different brushes without any expectations. This intuitive approach is particularly rewarding as a way to loosen up if you have been away from painting for some time.