Painting on Rtistx Board

by Mary ann Boysen
(Chagrin Falls, OH)

I am now experimenting with a new surface for watercolor called Rtistx-420. It is smooth, but has enough tooth to hold on to the pigment. I find that working on it is much like watercolor paper, but the washes and glazes are silky smooth and are glorious when dry, like the one I did for the Snowy Landscape.

In this painting, I began with the drawing of the Adirondack chairs. I took the time to get the drawing fairly accurate, being the detail person that i am. But in the long run, named the painting White Geraniums because of the flower pot on the table.

I began with my traditional three "mood" washes on a wet surface, so the colors would glow through the detail work. Then I established the darks in the background to make the flowers and the chairs stand out against the darks. It took a number of glazes to get the values that I wanted. And it is easy to glaze over and over on this surface.

The foreground shadows were established with a multi-colored shadow wash and a soft squirrel brush that comes to a nice point. Since much of the surface deals with the shadows, I didn't want them to be dull. Hence, the colors that you see. When the shadow wash was of the correct value, I painted in the stonework and tried to lead the eye into the focal point of the painting.