Water

So I began working on the water in Ogallala - but I decided to use a happier medium (a little artist joke). I went with Golden's Acrylic polymer heavy gel medium and the Golden's pthalo blue. I will most likely use this in layers and layers. I was going to use the amber varnish that I mentioned earlier - that is an oil based pigment - but I didn't for a few reasons - one is, the acrylic is water based and, in fact this is a depiction of water - seems to make sense to me :) - also, it is much more convenient. I keep forgetting that the acrylic paints offer so much more these days. Back when I was painting in acrylic in the late 80's early 90's all I was aware of was very simple mediums that to my recollection didn't allow for the transparent layering that can be achieved with oil. It is an interesting side note that most color today, and most of the images we are looking at, are created with a dot matrix of laying primary colors side by side - like the artist Seurat. Paintings and even old photographic images, were created by laying primaries one over the other in transparent layers - this accomplishes a level complexity that I tend to enjoy visually. Some of my next steps are to take pete moss and I am going to make a batch of resin and suspend the pete moss in the resin for the portion underneath. Above, I am also going to use resin right over the concrete but while it is curing, I am going to try and suspend sand right into the resin. Working like this is very satisfying because it reminds me of the three dimensional nature of painting - even a Vermeer was concerned not just with composition and color, but the physical characteristics of each layer of paint.