Simple Strokes

Green leaves – watercolor, Cynthia Maniglia 2015

Yellow suns- watercolor, Cynthia Maniglia 2015

Blue jacks – watercolor, Cynthia Maniglia 2015

Red Swirls- watercolor, Cynthia Maniglia, 2015

I haven’t been filling my watercolor journal lately – too busy working on projects for design competitions – so I decided to just do a series of various shades of primary colors – one page green, one page yellows/oranges, another page blues, and one more page reds – of simple shapes using single brush strokes. These were all done with the same brush, a filbert brush on very porous sketchbook/journal paper that I like to use for watercolor because the paper and paints “react” so well together when painting wet on dry. The paints I used were my inexpensive large variety palette – the kind they sell at the craft store. I liked it because it has a whole row of greens to use and a whole row of blues and so on … and I could just paint each color, one on top of the other, let them bleed a little into each other if I wanted or overlay over the first dried stroke and see the transparent effect of the second color on top of that. It’s a good way to get your hand and paints flowing without having to pick a subject or worry “what to paint.” And it’s fun to flip through my journal and see these pages.

Happy Summer!

Watercolor journal – Cynthia Maniglia, 2015