Brusho...

A lovely sunny day, which was a pleasant surprise as I was expecting clouds.

A day of small victories, the greatest being getting Alan an appointment to have his hair cut tomorrow.  Woo hoo!  

I then spent a pleasant afternoon playing with a new painting medium called Brusho.

For the uninitiated, it's a highly pigmented powdered paint, similar to watercolour but stronger in colour and able to withstand bleach to give texture to paintings.  

It comes in little tubs and can be sprinkled onto a paint palette with water added and used like watercolour paint, but the main way to use it is to either wet the paper and sprinkle it on, or sprinkle the powder onto dry paper and spray it with water.  In both the latter scenarios the colour explodes as soon as the water touches the powder.  It's unpredictable and fairly uncontrollable and I am hoping it will teach me to loosen up and be less of a control freak when I am painting.

As I am familiar with painting my version of thistles, I decided that would be a good subject to begin with.  I am quite pleased with this first attempt although the main lesson learned is how little pigment I actually have to use.  It goes a long way!  And don't use it near an open window on a breezy day.  It gets everywhere!  

And in other, related news, I sold a painting today :-))