Lesson 1 - starting the abstract

You may want to read this through a couple of times before starting, so you don't have to stop to read each step in case your paper dries too quickly.


The first step is to wet the paper thoroughly on both sides.  Use a big brush if  you have one.  It does a better job, and faster.  Then use a green watercolor pencil to sketch in a "cruciform" shape - that is, a shape that touches at least 3 sides of the paper and leaves corners empty.

Next, lay in some shapes with lemon or cadmium yellow, going over and/or next to the sketch.

do the same with yellow ochre, going on top of some of the yellow, but don't lose all the yellow

add sap green, and then some ultramarine blue which will darken the green

The next step is to take small pieces of wax paper and stick them to the wet paper following the direction of the sketch.

I added salt, a few dark lines, and then I used some medical gauze which I will show in the next photo.  I stretched the gauze so that it made textured lines and then gently painted over them with ultramarine blue.  You can skip this step if you don't have gauze, or maybe find something else to create more texture.  Be creative.

Now we wait for it all to dry.