Fungiflora

Watercolor and Ink

on Arches 100% cotton hot-pressed paper

14 x 20 inches

2023

 

This piece was created using the decalcomania method.

See Decalcomania.

This was my first experiment with using the decalcomania method to produce a composition with a dark, cool background and warm foreground.  It was kind of tricky considering the limitations of watercolors. It involved using a LOT of liquid masking medium.

The flower-like forms are totally fictional.

Below is a detail of a small section of the painting in progress. You can see portions of the work before ink was applied. The decalcomania process produced random layered translucent shapes that I used as a base for the more illustrative inked line layer. Interpreting those shapes feels like carefully coaxing a form out of chaos.