I started this painting before the turn of the last page of the calendar. It started as an experiment, metamorphosed into a fun-filled colour-splash session and ended up being a discovery. Does that make it worthy of being put up as the first painting of the year? Maybe, maybe not. To make this periodic decision less subjective, let's just go by chronology :)Salt grants water colours a certain granular texture - an interesting way of depicting foliage. The amateur in me was excited to learn that - my imagination failed me in conjuring up an intricately explicit picture of the plausible final product. I was curious - and itching to experiment. Enthusiastically I oozed out various colours on the palette and one by one, began to paint wet-in-wet. Honestly, a freehand to a splash of multi-colour wet-in-wet is all that's needed to bring out the kindergarten kid in you. Forget about the end product or the composition of a painting - I'd say, just give it a shot! It's the same feeling that a gull experiences when it swooshes over an endless sea.
And oh! I discovered a lot of things...
It's nice to have a reference picture, but chances are, the gap between the finished painting and the picture can seem intimidating enough to want to take up reading as your favourite hobby for the next few days. A demonstation from art-books is even better. But since most of my paintings begin with a big brouhaha in my own head, by the time I'm done with following Step 3 of 10, the brouhaha has been brewed into quite a bacchanalia.
Nothing beats the kick that a sheer flight of imagination can give. I guess my next painting would be the result of close observation of some snaps that my new shutter-bug has recently feasted on. However, I want to give myself 10 minutes of such staring-time and all the time in the world to play around with the flights of fantasy that emanate thereafter. That's the biggest discovery.
And yes, too much salt dries up the water AND gobbles up the paint!
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