This weekend, I reblogged two really interesting articles on the aesthetic or idea of employing lost edges, where the boundaries of given recognizable objects meld into the color space around it (side plane, background, etc).

I’d already haphazardly begun working with the idea, wondering if I was off-base to even be considering it, when I saw the 1st post, via artist Dianne Mize, in my email in-box. Short & succinct, she gives immediate clear credence to the whole notion.

This set me on a Google search, where I found Caroline Buchanan’s article, from 2014, loaded with visual examples and expanding on the whole idea.

If you visit these two artists’ posts, you should be able to see and access many years of articles, many of which I’ve bookmarked to return to (or took a sneak peek and also read 😊).

Below, is my first kinda-attempt at deciding if I could allow myself to lighten or fade (or lose) some of the edges around what I hope’ ll be a cluster of blooms closed together. I hadn’t even decided how I’d separate them beyond using value changes & hopefully adding pen & ink to the inside boundaries too.

The light blue markings are masking fluid, where there seemed to be the brightest highlights. I still don’t feel I’ve had much luck with the that, but I also haven’t given up yet, lol! I’ll have more on my masking fluid projects near the end of this post.

You may note too that I’ve begun tinkering with placing my sig ahead of time where’s there’s a space – before it disappears with magical brushwork I don’t want to cover 😏

Nothing more’s happened with this canvas yet, meanwhile looking like a misshapen balloon trying to become a cloud! 😂

Immediately below is a better rendition of applying partial edges amid a cluster with a bit more separation and lines to balance the curves – plus a nifty spot for my sig 😊

These pics, btw, are in order of when I laid them out, thus reflecting a bit of handwringing & learning – ugh!

And next is the one I like best so far. Afraid to even touch it now, lol!

I used a light blue watercolor pencil to sketch out where I liked the lines within the boundaries of the 6×6 canvas, before laying out the permanent black ink lines. The blue lines can stay (via being fixed by my now handy Spectrafix spray) as part of the overall pic, or – as I found out by accident (of course) – I can use a brush with clean water, and they’ll wipe away easier than lifting watercolor paint!

And next following, below, is my earliest pen and ink, which I hadn’t planned doing any lost edges with, but lost them anyways as I applied paint and removed masking fluid. Then came Dianne Mize’s handy timely Lost Edges post! Serendipity at its best 😊

[ update 02.26.20 – been meaning to link to a prev serendipity art moment for me, back late last year 😊 It eventually ended leading to the sale of an art piece in a completely unrelated way! Hope you’ll take a look ☺️ ]

The work below has gotten several makeovers as I struggle to handle watercolor paint and water. A dear friend at lunch the other day said I shouldn’t do anymore to it and I said ok, then today did just a little to it. It’d kept begging me to! I promise I only “touched” it up! ❤️

The work seen in the same frame below it on the wall is a new masking fluid project, more on it further below!

And the painting immediately below is I think my so-far, best attempt, at both pen & ink and lost edges. Last night, when I finally left it for dead, I was very unhappy how it looked. This morning, after a pretty good night’s rest, it seemed better. I very lightly tinkered with it today and like it more. Not great, maybe not even really good, but not bad 😊

And now finally I come to my 2nd attempt to mask out an idea originally begun with Violet Blooms – this I’ll just call v2 for now. There’s more simplicity and clarity, I hope! Plus some directional lines.

What I haven’t decided is if I’ll again do a dark background, or go light this time. We..shall..see 😊

Below v2 is my 1st Violet Blooms masking fluid updated to near finish –
With a new title!

As per my previous update post on Violet Blooms, I was very-very unhappy with my decisions of how I’d applied the masking lines and and didn’t separate the forms properly. I didn’t exactly get over it, lol, but I did look for and find a way to still make this work as another of my accidental creations 😊

I filled in some but not all of the masked areas with yellow, and enhanced the dark bordering over most the the image, esp on the top half.

And, I’ve changed the name to what I see good in it now –
The Earth is a Garden 💕

It’s a very good thing I have a fluid imagination ❤️

Right now I have the relative rare luxury of allowing myself to explore what I can do in this new medium of watercolors. I feel I’ve graduated from elementary school to Jr High, middle school I guess nowadays 😊 High School’s still a distant vague dream of what might be 😊

That’s ok. It’s nice to have some adolescent dream still remaining in my soon to be 70 year old body later this year ❤️

Be well everyone! Be creative! Explore your own work, or explore samples from artists like Dianne Mize and Carolyn Buchanan. It’s all good 💕

Adan

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• July 30, 2021 – What a Difference a New Keyboard Makes : LENRICH iPad pro 12.9 case with keyboardJuly 30, 2021
  This is an older now discontinued keyboard, but one of the few still available for my IPad Pro 2nd generation model (current model is 5th generation I believe), but I’m impressed with it enough to post about it and (if all continues well) my renewed ease of use not having to use the onscreen keyboard for blog posts, emails etc – that’s a big deal for me, lol! 😊
• July 29, 2021 – Whew! Yesterday Was a Day of Plowing Through, lol!July 29, 2021
  Above is a picture of me November 2019 (notice the weather is warm but hot, finally 😊) and I look just a bit worn out? I’d just climbed the 218 steps to top of Old Baldy near Wimberley Texas! That’s kinda how I felt yesterday, only without as nice a view, lol! I’ll just say that….
• July 28, 2021 – New 25×40 #Acrylic on Canvas In-Progress : Barton Springs Greenbelt Indian SummerJuly 28, 2021
  A chore heat filled day where my keyboard evidently is deciding it’s had it, lol! Hopefully I finish this post 😊 Basically I started the groundwork for my newest painting, acrylic, wanting to settle on my composition before hand, unlike how I handled my just finished watercolor, same size, where I inserted my figure at the end.
• July 27, 2021 – 4 Weeks Running! My Most Viewed Image For the Week @FineArtAmerica, Summer is a Lady : #Watercolor on Paper #ContemporaryImpressionismJuly 27, 2021
  I’m sure I’ve had images repeat as most viewed 4 times in a row, but I wasn’t paying as much attention to that as I try to nowadays 😊 Summer is a Lady continues to simmer atop my selection of photos and artwork and illustrated poetry ♥️
• July 26, 2021 – Where I Left Off Before Our Trip, New #Watercolor on Canvas Completed : Barton Springs Greenbelt Indian SummerJuly 26, 2021
  I just took another look at my newly completed painting (above) to try for some settled sentiment I can include for my post, and I do have that – some settled sentiment. I’m still digesting and assimilating what this new work means to me. Though I know it’s incomplete, because I also know this work is more a conscious marker of where I want to head, and feel compelled to head toward, I do have a grasp enough to point out some things that are making themselves more known to me.
• July 25, 2021 – Where I Left Off Before Our Trip, New Watercolor on Canvas in-progress, Developing the Right Figure to AddJuly 25, 2021
  As you can tell from my top pic, my efforts to progress from my value study and digital studies below are not going great, lol! I take solace from several things —

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Thanks again, everyone! 😊

Adan

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