Watercolour: Accidental Printing

A few weeks ago I accidentally smudged and printed one sketchbook page to the other.

The page where colour from one page went onto the next. I like this effect, and you can have these primary and secondary marks on the page, the first and the second. I thought this could be a great activity to do with teachers and school children.

Here is the page I printed without intending to:

I had actually forgotten about this happening when I began drawing some simple stone like forms, inspired by the winter solstice gathering at Stonehenge.

I added some watercolour before working over the top with chalk pastel (I forgot to take a photo at this stage).

I was then glancing through my sketchbook to see what early ideas jumped out and remembered about the accidental printing so I covered a page with lose watercolour wash and pressed it into the stone drawing.

What I really liked about this technique was the lack of control over the outcome. It taps into the process centred approach I like to explore and so I will continue some experiments in this way. I'd like to see if a sense of depth and mystery can be conveyed, whatever the subject of the piece is (figure, form, landscape etc).

The other chance discovery was what happened to the paper I'd painted the wash into. This picked up some of the pastel lines from the main piece and in itself, became something of its own. Discovery, chance and exploration - all things I want to dig deeper into.