Experimenting...

This post is about mixed media efforts in the above piece.

Originally, I finished the piece like this, without the background:

The problem was that it felt like it just didn't have anything tying it off and calling itself complete.

So I played around in PS Elements. Filling in the background with a few choices:




I really liked the orange background, but there is nothing to tie the orange to blue so I was afraid it would appear tacked on. The light blue option maintains unity in the drawing, but it doesn't have any complementary color "pop" and you even seem to lose a few of the mid-tone edge shapes.

I was too chicken to try and add the background in with ink (as the irises were done) so I was intent on using the very controllable colored pencil. Colored pencil is not really suited for use on watercolor paper, there is too much texture for an unobtrusive background. I added orange into the flowers and to the background, hoping to tie it all together.

I layered the background with the pencil and then lifted it of in a random manner with a kneaded eraser. In person, it has a fairly neat marble effect. Digitally, it just looks bad. So all in all, I am going to have to try and resolve my issues with making background washes - perhaps starting with the background. Trouble is, that with the inks I don't do a line drawing first, so I'm not all that likely to know where to start/stop the background.

Such an adventure art is!