I like using textures in my watercolors and am a great admirer of Ann Blockley's watercolors and her innovative use of textures. She incorporates acrylics, inks and sometimes paints with sticks rather than brushes to achieve her goal - all with very effective results. These teasels grow on the mountains around Marin and make an interesting subject for using textures. For the teasels I used sepia ink and scratched into them to create the spikiness. Remembering that one should paint dark against light I used a watered down burnt sienna and cobalt blue for the background. The painting below was done with acrylics and I was really just doodling as an exercise to loosen up, but liked the result so decided to post it. I thought it ended up resembling an abstract leaf design.
