This week was a week for experimentation—experiments with ink, gouache, and masking fluid (ink experiments are ongoing, gouache is on the back burner for now).

My most successful experiment was with masking fluid - I wanted to have a desaturated warm blue background to compliment the cool yellow leaves, so I applied masking fluid to the outline, then put a water wash over the page, followed with bands of purple and blue at the top of the page. When I tipped the page up to create a gradated wash and found that he paint flowed and settled around the masking fluid in interesting, organic patterns. It wouldn’t work for every subject, but I’ll experiment with how this affects applications more in the future!