Watercolor Gift

Last week-end, my grandson came over and painted with me. We used the watercolor crayons and during the painting process, he broke one. I was not upset but he was. They are crayons after all and in use, it is to be expected his or my fingers will hold it too tight and one will break. I was using them this morning (laying in color using the tip) and a different one broke, my dark blue - almost directly in the center of the crayon.

Dry: I peeled the paper off the bigger half and used it sideways on my dry 140 lb cold press watercolor block paper to put some light dark blue color down at the bottom of my seascape. I got traces of pigment on my fingers and on the paper … only the top of the rough paper took color - the troughs are not filled with color like they are when I use the tip of the crayon to lay in color. The plan is for it to be covered with sand but this is a nice first color layer to work on harmony and tonal values. Plus, I do not know exactly yet where the sand will be so some could show there after all.

Wet: I got out a sheet of the watercolor canvas, sprayed it liberally with water so it was quite wet. Then I took the blue crayon piece sideways and dragged it back and forth across the entire sheet. It is a bit messy and I had to wash my fingers of course afterwards [I still have a light blue stain on my fingers (if you want, wear some plastic gloves to do this to keep from staining your skin)]. In the space of a minute - I have a lovely blue background dark wash on the watercolor canvas sheet for whatever I may want to put on next - whether it be abstract, seascape or perhaps a tree study.

Spray:Now, I am going to take the smaller half and immerse it into water in my spray bottle to melt it into watery blue pigment. My goal is to get a sprayable blue watercolor. I have not done this before so it is an experiment - I may put in too much water and it might be a very faint blue. I’ll find out. I have no idea how long it might take to dissolve … if it is too light a blue, I can always add more paint to it to see if I can get it darker.