FINISHED YUPO

This was the first big painting I did many years ago on a full sheet of heavy weight YUPO - 40 inches long by 26 inches wide. All the weights of YUPO are the same exact surface and accept the paint the same, but since YUPO doesn't absorb water at all, no matter what the weight is, it never stretches or warps like regular cotton watercolor paper does when it's wet.

I prefer the heavy weight over the lighter YUPO just because it's easier to handle. The light weight YUPO is very flimsy, so if I move the painting at all while I'm working on it, I have little control over how easily the paper flops around. Medium weight YUPO is ok to work on, too, and recently I've used the fairly flimsy translucent YUPO. Because you can see through what's called Transparent YUPO, it's easy to trace a drawing through it onto the surface.

Did you know that if you erase on YUPO, the eraser makes an invisible mark that won't ever accept paint? Using watercolor pencils - Derwent brand is best - works well for drawing on YUPO because you can 'erase' mistakes with a moistened tissue.

These colorful 'boats' in Maine were so vibrant in all that marine wilderness, that I knew they'd become a painting on YUPO. Anything with dancing colors looks extremely good on YUPO, since the colors stay put, never fading on the paper. Often, on cotton watercolor paper, the colors look spectacular while they are wet, then once the paint dries, the color looses it's pop. (Can you tell I'm very partial to all the good qualities of painting on YUPO?)

Whatever we paint on, the most important thing we can do is to 'tell' others what's important to us, how we see the world in our own special way. The materials and techniques we use certainly affect how we express ourselves, but being an artist involves creating something that lets others see our own personal point of view. Otherwise, we're just decorating the canvas or paper with some nice colors, textures, and shapes.

One of these days, I'm going to order a whole roll of YUPO. Imagine how big those paintings will be!

"FRIENDSHIP COMPLETED" Transparent Watercolor on YUPO, 40 x 26"

YUPO AFLOAT

Pulled out of the archives, this painting was practice for a bigger one and painted while I had my reference photo in front of me. In early fall, eight of us from three different classes will be painting in beautiful Italy, and we'll be painting from real life, not photos.

Working outside on location has some strong advantages. The emotion of the moment, the inspiration, the smells, the breeze, the sun, the action, our reaction, all of it is there when you paint on location. Somehow it adds to the energy in the painting. We'll sure experience it this fall - can't wait!

"WAITING IN FRIENDSHIP" Transparent Watercolor on YUPO, 14 x 10"

YUPO EARLY PAINTING

This YUPO painting is one of the very first ones I did back when I was just discovering why some colors pounced on others and pushed them out of the way so fast. I called them 'pushy' colors in a class once, referring to them several times that way, 'pushy.' The next week, one of the ladies asked me where to buy that brand of watercolors. She'd been all over town and couldn't find them.

Sooo ----- pushy colors are heavier in particle size, less finely ground, and they quickly sink to the bottom of a puddle, spreading out along the slick surface of the YUPO. When mixing just 'pushy' colors together, they get along, but when put in a puddle of finely ground color, like a phthalo or quinacridone color, WOW!!! Lots of action.

Click on photo, and you can see the 'pushy' color effect on the side of the red ship. I used only pushy colors in the sky because I wanted it to stay put and be as smooth as possible. (This was before the days of using a foam roller to smooth the colors on YUPO.)

All cobalts, most earth pigment like siennas and umbers, and cerulean are 'pushy.' There are lots more, so you'll have to try your own paints in puddles of phthalos or quinacridones to see how they behave on YUPO. Once you know what ones work against each other, then you can make good choices about the effects you want to happen on YUPO.

"DEEP SEA DREAMS" Transparent Watercolor on YUPO 25 x 19"