Just add water.

I have been working on adding glazes to my repertoire. A thin layer of transparent colour over the top of thick paint. It is not a complicated process, no mediums are needed you just add a lot of water. This is a relief to me because I have never got on with Glazing Medium, peculiar sticky stuff.

Adding a glaze may help me to create the kind of depth that I am looking for. The contrast between thick paint and thin paint makes for a richer experience. A transparent glaze doesn’t alter the contrast much but a more opaque glaze, of something with white in it lightens the area while you can still see through it. It has also been helpful to build up my tolerance of painting over things on my panels and increase the number of layers before I grind to a halt.

I applied a turquoise glaze over this panel, then came back in with thick yellow and another more opaque glaze in a paler yellow. I like it, it feels like you can see to the bottom of the river.

Staying out for the Summer.

I particularly like a transparent glaze over a dark colour. I have always been moved by views of artificial lights on a dark harbour, and although I am pretty sure that my abstract works will not be based on landscape, I think this is an aesthetic that I might like to use. This panel (below) wouldn’t leave me alone until I got it to a finished stage, so I think there must be something about it. I love the cerulean blue glaze and the dark thicker paint coming back in over the top edge of it. I like the thin lines I drew with an acrylic marker and the contrast in texture too. There are a lot of layers of thick paint underneath and even some collaged circles in there somewhere. I don’t know what’s going on, but I will keep following those clues!