49 Still Life with Butter Crock

49  "Still Life with Butter Crock" 12x12 watercolor and acrylic on aquaboard, copyright Laura Gable

This painting began on a late night Sunday a few weeks ago. I ran into some trouble with the perspective on the ellipse of the butter crock. It gave me fits for awhile, so I redrew and scrubbed it out a few times. I wonder if painting these ellipses are a bit of a learning disability ... like the way I always misspell "lable" - or is it "label"? hah.

Today I was bound and determined to finish this painting or toss it in the scrap pile. I discovered in my aggressive scrubbing, that I'd removed a lot of the texture in the foreground and other areas. You see these Ampersand aquaboards come with a lovely pebbly texture to their surface. That's what allows the watercolor to lay down in successive layers so nicely. I've always liked the correctable quality of these boards ... you can so easily lift the color, even staining colors, and bring it nearly back to white. Successive scrubbing can cause problems though. I pulled out the old acrylics to finish it up. I'm not a huge fan of acrylic, especially after switching to oils. They don't have the blendability, and dry so quickly. I muddled through it though, and had an enjoyable experience after all. I wanted the painting to have a bit of a vintage sketchy quality. So I'm glad to call this one "completed".