Grazing in Westbroek - October 12, 2009

"Consider the postage stamp: its usefulness consists in the ability to stick to one thing until it gets there."

– Josh Billings

.Grazing in Westbroek

8" x 10" Watercolor on Yupo

I finally spent a little time with my new Yarka travel watercolor set. I like them. They are very rich in pigment. They are almost thick, and never really dry hard on the pallet. There is a stickiness to them, that keeps me from closing the lid and using them for travel, because all the pans stick to the lid. When you open up the lid, all the pans are stuck to it. I guess I could glue them down. Anybody have any ideas?

I learned a few things this time, about working on yupo.

It really does make a difference, if you wipe the whole sheet off with isopropyl alcohol before you start. It removes all the invisible little fingerprints that cause the paint to repel from the yupo. This is why they recommend that you handle yupo with cotton gloves.

I used a barely damp fan brush, to get the details on the grass. I let everything dry really well before I went back in and added the cattle. The whole painting still only took me 30 minutes. I enjoyed the process a lot.

About Josh Billings

Josh Billings was the pen name of folksy American humorist Henry Wheeler Shaw. He was born in Massachusetts in 1818. After he was thrown out of college for stealing the clapper from the school bell, he roamed far and wide for 26 years before settling down in Poughkeepsie, New York, as an auctioneer. His essays were initially snubbed; he became successful only after he adopted a more eccentric phonetic spelling. He was best known for his annual Old Farmer's Allminax. He died in 1885.