Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Painting on Ampersand Aquabord

I bought a bunch of Bords yesterday at the Utretch art store in Santa Monica. (GREAT store, by the way!) A "Bord" is just Ampersand's way of saying "board." Today I did a watercolor on the Aquabord.


Terrace View, Chicago -- watercolor on board -- 5"x7"

It was an interesting experience working on this clay board, as this was my first time painting watercolor on something besides paper. They say that you can lift the paint back to white easily, but this was not my experience at all. I realized with my first laying of color that once something is on there, it absorbs right into the board--there's really no going back. So I'm not sure why they say that... maybe I'm missing something. I'm used to having at least a small window of time with paper to blot something up, or create a gradation of color. Eventually I learned that if you want to do a wash or a flat, even color over an area, you need to wet the surface first so it doesn't soak right in and create a hard edge on contact. 

One major advantage is that you can spray varnish it and not worry about framing it behind glass--which to me is a pretty big deal when it comes to have to ship the artwork! However, it DOES chip fairly easily. So I would recommend some kind of frame.

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