"Happy Accident"

A little history... when I first started painting I was transitioning from woodworking. I discovered that painters need a hard surface on which to paint - a backer board to put the paper on. I looked around my workshop and found lots of luan paneling. I cut it into the dimensions I wanted - several different sizes - sanded them and brushed on polyurethane to protect the wood. These boards are lightweight and sturdy. Just right...and free!

Every December our art league has an exhibit at our local library that is exclusive watercolor. And, every year I fret about what I am going to enter. This year I decided to go with some abstracts.

I looked through paintings that I had already finished to see if anything caught my eye. Watercolor on yupo paper... there were several and one that had never been framed.

I gave it a critical look and decided to mat and frame it. Unfortunately, I do not have a series of photos about the process, but I do remember how it happened.

I was experimenting with how watercolor flows on yupo... I dropped some yellow paint on the wet paper, held it up and watched it flow. Then I dropped some red near the top and watched as it flowed toward the yellow. It was fun to watch, a nice experiment, interesting granulation, but I didn't think it was frame-worthy.

So, I turned the paper over and played with some other colors. Nothing really excited me, so I just left it all to dry.

A few days later, I went back to it, picked up the paper and turned it over! Amazing! The wet paper had picked up the texture of the wood paneling. That was something that I never considered - sometimes paintings just paint themselves... certainly a 'happy accident.'

I also entered another yupo abstract - "Blue on Pink" that I blogged about last August.

Both paintings are hanging at the library in St Michaels until the end of December. Drop by and see the entire show. There are some beautiful watercolors hanging on the gallery wall!