Map4

This is about 9" x 10-1/2". First I took a piece of green Saint-Armand Colours watercolor paper and laid on a mixture of clear Colourfix primer, water, Golden Fiber Paste, and DS 'Green Gold' watercolor paint. The paper buckled a bit and so I let this concoction (which was the consistency of yogurt) pool up and flow around the buckled-up areas. It created a kind of gooey spiderweby effect. (Which I should have documented. Since it looked pretty alluring.) Once the paper was dry I glued it to a piece of partially (left+right sides only) beveled foamboard.

Then I made the underlying design using DS Watercolor sticks, NeoArt crayons, and Horadam Gouache in the wonderful color 'madder red dark'. I tried some alcohol sprays, but didn't get too enamored of the effects. Seemed to muddy things up too much.

Once that was almost dry I played around with the soft pastels on top. And more gouache, and more pastels.

Colors? Well. I was reading a post the other day about how digital cameras vary all over the place with regard to color rendition. This pic here? Well I couldn't even come close to rescuing the colors with Photoshop. And even if I had, your monitor is not calibrated the same as mine is so it'd look different anyway. So c'est la vie. As I noted: this is all an exercise in approximation.

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Pot'o Goodness: Currently bubbling in the pot as we speak: Crockpot Chicken Makhani. (Thank you, Miss E, for suggesting it!) No, my friends, I did not sew my cardamon pods together. This is what a tea ball is all about. (Holy cow, but them cardamon pods is damn expensive, ain't they?) And no, I didn't have any 'Garam masala' hanging around in the the old spice rack. I mixed my own! The question is: what am I going to do with all this leftover shredded coconut?