Until I saw an actual live Bird of Paradise flower blooming in Maui, I had no idea why people thought they were so neat. WHEW! The striking vibrant colors and unique flower structure are breathtaking for sure. Any time a watercolor painting calls for vibrant color, I consider YUPO paper first. Although I can easily lift paint on YUPO, even after it's dry, I often choose to miskit areas that are to remain a pure white or pure light color. Here, the warm yellow and orange areas were miskited first before I applied liberal amounts of juicy blues and greens for the background. Even the edges of some of the foreground leaves were miskited to help maintain sharpness and clarity. Once the color was on and allowed to flow, I added darks into areas by charging them in rather than brushing them over the area.
The more I can get the paints to move together on their own without help from a brush, the fresher the YUPO painting looks. This also helps encourage the possibility of spontaneous accidents that can add great life and excitement to a picture. I suppose that the hardest part of painting on YUPO for me is to keep my brush out of the paint as much as possible.
If you're a watercolorist and have not yet tried YUPO 'paper,' make it your resolution to give it a try soon. If the painting doesn't work like you hoped, wash off the paint and go again and again and again.
"PARADISE" Transparent Watercolor on Heavyweight YUPO, approx. 17 x 13" SOLD
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