playing...

it's been a playing kind of week... first in Calgary with a 3 year old

blocks and towers, castles and cars

and now in Edmonton with paints and brushes

I treated myself to something new... Liquid Charcoal

made right here in Canada

I began my trials with swatches, just trying to get a sense of how the charcoal behaves in a wash, working light to dark and then seeing how much I could fiddle with it before ruining the effect

it has granulating properties which I love but am not very familiar with

after the first couple of swatches I switched from watercolour paper to vellum and then, playing with the brush stroke a bit, painted a sort of flower

after it dried I glazed it with mauve watercolour paint mixed with a small amount of the liquid charcoal - a very light wash to give just a hint of colour

it reminds me of tinted photographs 

I also mixed the charcoal with a bit of Payne's Grey watercolour and did some quick washes with that too

it's a bright, sunny day here so not great for photos

I know nothing at all about liquid charcoal but yesterday I happened to stumble on a video from a near-by art shop that demonstrated this one by Nitram as well as three by Schmincke - they also look very intriguing but are expensive so I settled on the one by Nitram 

Video

I have an idea though... the Schmincke liquid charcoals are made from grape seeds, peach stones, and cherry pits

and I just happen to have two cherry trees in my backyard and a serious penchant for experimenting with making ink and watercolour paint