CLEMATIS - WATERCOLOUR LIFTING TECHNIQUE

I started this last week, as a demo for class in the lifting technique.  I wish I had taken a photo at the earliest stage.
I started by saturating the paper with water. I had decided on a cool palette, and used quin. violet, phthalo green, indanthrone and a touch of aureolin. I made the colours fairly dilute, and dropped them onto the wet paper, and rocked the board to get the colours to blend a bit. I then used a large flat brush to start lifting the colour from the area of the white flowers. When I had a reasonable likeness of the clematis, I let it dry. I went back later, and did a bit more lifting, using a moist brush to wet select spots I wanted to lift further.
When the lifting was finished, I added some leaves, wet in wet, with a mixture of quin. gold and indanthrone to get a soft, more neutral green. And I painted the stems with quin. violet.

I went over the leaves with a mix of phthalo green and quin. gold, leaving random streaks for the veins. I also started working on the shadows of the petals, using a mix of quin. gold and indanthrone.

More shadowing done wet in wet, or by softening applied paint with a damp brush.

 I considered applying a thin wash of gold and indanthrone to the background, but decided that would defeat the purpose of the lifting technique - to create a background that gently integrates with the subject matter. 

  

This is a quick demo I did in Thursday's class, using the same triad of colours. It shows how a lifted painting looks in the very early stages.

Thank you so much for dropping by!