Mixed and Muddied

A few nights ago I did some random acrylic swirls and squiggles in my watercolor journal because I wanted them good and dry by morning. I should never do things like this too late at night....but sometimes things look better in the light of day. I'm not sure that was the case this time....but a little paint would help.

I decided to do a experiment with the two pages using liquid watercolor. 

I used three colors:

Ultramarine blue

Primary Yellow

Bougainvillea

On the right hand page I used the colors just as they came out of the bottle....saturated and shockingly electric.

I wet washed the whole page and dropped in the colors letting them bleed and mix however they wanted in and around the acrylic paint lines.

On the opposite page I used the same wet wash technique. But this time I put a few drops of the same three colors in the wells of a palette and mixed my own more muted colors adding in a little mud along the way. 

Mud is the mixture of all the colors...and helps tone down and unify them. Once it was dry...I glazed over some of the areas a second time to get some darker values.

There's a time and place for wild saturated colors...maybe. But the mixed and muddied side is more appealing and still reads as bright and vibrant. The colors seem more cohesive because they are blended into each other. I have learned this lesson from several artists I admire...and it was a good exercise to put it into practice once again. Mixed and muddied is the way to go!