Mixed Media Waterlilies

This started out as an interesting experiment.  Several other watercolor artists and I get together once a month to paint and this month we decided to play musical easels.  We each arrived with a drawing on a quarter sheet of watercolor paper.  We started painting on our own painting and every 10 minutes or so we would rotate to the next painting.  We didn't look at the photo references so we didn't know what the original artist intended.  We just added whatever we felt the painting needed.

Unfortunately for my painting, I chose a piece of paper that had lost its sizing….again.  I wonder how many more pieces of bad watercolor paper I have in my stockpile.  Anyway, everyone was challenged when working on my painting because the paint just soaked in and couldn't be blended or controlled.

After we decided that all of the paintings were finished as much as they could be, I covered my painting with gesso using the technique that I learned from Kathleen Conover.  I knew that the paper needed to be sealed before the painting could move forward.  After the gesso dried, I proceeded to overwork the poor painting to the point of no return.

This will go in my pile of non-successful paintings but I know that if the paper had been normal, it would have been a very cool painting created by my very talented friends.

Here is how it looked before I added the gesso and gobs of paint:

It looks better in this photo than I remember it looking in person.  It was pretty washed out as I recall.

Here are the other paintings that we worked on during our painting day.

Peggy Moore's painting

Peggy Minger-McCants' painting

Sue Foat's painting

Susan Gale's painting

Usually when we get together each month, we each bring paintings that we are working on and we share our opinions and try to help and encourage each other.  It was fun to pick a project that we could do together and we all really enjoyed the experience.

I want to wish you a very Merry Christmas and thank all of you that support me by visiting my blog and commenting on my paintings.  It means a lot to me.