When I published the first What’s In My Artists Studio post last Friday, Judy Barends mentioned in a comment that she was also putting her partly completed painting in folders. Great idea. So I’ve followed Judy’s advice and divided my paintings into five categories – all in folders – four of which you can see in this photograph. The fifth is a Work In Progress folder for paintings that are almost done, but need to rest while I think about their progress. These sometimes stick around for a long time before the inspiration strikes and I know exactly how I want to finish them.

One of the things I do with my scrap paper when the spirit moves me, is just play with the paints. Laying down water and various intensities of colour, and then adding a second colour a bit further down the page. With a clean wet brush, just lightly join the two , leave the paper at a fairly steep angle and watch what the pigments do. There’s a lot to learn from these little aimless exercises, and the best part of it is that sometimes you get some glorious results which are beautiful  in their own right.

Although this isn’t a completed painting, I think the wash on this little pigment play is so lovely, I’m nominating it to be my Day 10 painting for 30 paintings in 30 days.

Other posts in the What’s in my Artists Studio series:

– What’s in my Artists Studio: Incomplete paintings – now all neatly arranged in folders. Now when I need scrap for colour testing, or a wash to start a new painting, I know exactly where to look.

Next post in the series: What’s in my Artists Studio: Palettes