Playing with Watercolor while traveling

I thoroughly enjoyed my recent trip up and down the Oregon Coast, but I did find that I wasn't as inclined to do much artwork after a day of driving.  I did get a little watercolor done--mostly jsut dinking around even more than usual.

While visiting the Tillamook Cheese Factory, I picked up a Cow Poo journal. I know-aNOTHer journal?  But how could I resist?  I have elephant poo journals, but no cow ones.  Now I just need to find a Pando Poo journal.

The cow poo paper is fairly thick and spongy and so obviously NOT meant for watercolor.  So, me being me, I started the journal with a watercolor page.  Surprise! 

It was incredibly hard to paint on this paper. It sucked up the water like a--well...a sponge.  While wet, it color looked horrible.  It bled through to the back of the page.  I was sure I'd ruined the page. And then the watercolor dried.

Wow.  It looks half-way decent.  I wasn't expecting that at all.  

I doubt I'll do any more watercolor in this book--it's too hard to spread the color.  But I know that I can if I want too!  The paper takes a fairly good line with pen and ink.  It's a rough weave, so the lines are wobbly, but I didnt' have any feathering with a Micron.  



I also played with some color in my Stillman & Birn Zeta sketchbook.  These were very much  just dinking around, splashing color down to see what happens.  I thought I might work up to something, but after a few moments, I decided to call it a night and just watch the fabulous ocean waves.


Comments