We visited Scotland last week and I was drawn to the beautiful colours and textures of this rock pool. I decided to have fun with this piece, painting from the video rather than from a still photograph. I used loose watercolour for the background and tried out a number of special brushes that I bought some time ago but have not really used. I then created marks with Caran D’Ache Neocolour II - a Water soluble wax-like crayon. With these, you can make marks and then add water and it leaves some texture visible underneath.
My inner critic was very loud during this process as this painting really pushed me out of my comfort zone. I prefer to work in a realistic way, but in this case I was attempting to capture something of the feeling of being on the beach and watching the ripples on the rock pool and the seaweed floating within the pool. The materials also gave me a challenge. Although I have had the crayons for awhile, I have never really got into using them and I eventually started to enjoy exploring the marks that could be made with the crayons, just playing and experimenting.
Is there anything that you do that really challenges you? If you’ve used these materials, what did you think of them? I’d love to know about your experiences.
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