13. GRADUATE STUDIES IN PAINTING, PART 3 (abstracts in watercolor and the Kite Series)
LAYERED TRANSPARENT WATERCOLOR WASHES Oil on canvas was the primary medium with which I was creating the Colored Square Series. As the series progressed, I became interested in working with layered watercolor washes as Klee and Kurt Kranz had done... PAUL KLEE WATERCOLORS KURT KRANZ WATERCOLORS I used the same type of layering of transparent washes to build up subtle color variations. I experimented with how different pigments affect the color underneath when layered over various colors. Some pigments are more opaque (like the yellows and the warm red) and lay on top of the color underneath, but some pigments are transparent (like the cool red and the blues) and have a tendency to blend with and stain the color underneath. In the illustration below, you can see how the staining blue pigments (and cool red) almost obliterate the color underneath... I created a series of paintings that were based solely on this type of layering transparent colors...