If you avoid watercolour because you’ve heard it’s unforgiving, check out Carolyn’s great big mistake! This is a portrait of a local mayor, set to be entered in a contest. Carolyn has been working on it in black and white to focus on contrasts, occasionally checking a colour picture for the eyes, the shirt, the crests… unfortunately, in the b&w photo, it seemed obvious that the silk collar that the silver (um) ornaments (?) are on is just a blacker black than the jacket. So Carolyn layered that part, in all its detail, with about three glazes of deepest black. Then she checked the colour photo. Oh no! It’s supposed to be blue!!! Well, even the darkest watercolour paint is forgiving to a certain extent. On the right you see a half scrubbed version; on the right it the restored, blue version. Whew! Almost an April Fool!
Three Generation Watercolourists 