Week 8 - Paint With One Colour

This week the challenge was to paint with one colour using different shades by only adding white or black. I decided to try watercolour on watercolour paper. The first colour I experimented with was ultramarine blue - added a lot of white and did a wash of this pale colour first leaving a lot of white areas, then straight colour, then added some darker shades - waited till it dried and added a bit more straight colour to add some depth. Got carried away with the wavy black lines.

I enjoyed doing this, so did a second one with cerulean blue in the same way. This time while painting the pale wash I thought it should look like a sky scene. Very happy with the softness of this painting and quite happy of what I achieved using only the one colour.

I loved the challenge of using the one colour and painted a third piece using sap green. Again added a lot of white did a wash, floated in some straight sap green - added black and fl0ated in some shadows. This one felt like a pond so that is what I tried to create with the different shades. Once dried painted in some reeds and branches using just the white and black. This is my favourite painting and I can see it expanded out into a larger piece, adding a few more colours and maybe a water bird of some sort.

I thoroughly enjoyed playing around with the washy effect of the watercolours all running together and quite amazed of what I created with a limited colour. I like the fact with watercolour you can lift the colour out and create white areas.