I love painting in watercolour, but it’s always bothered me that the end result had to go behind glass. Recently, I heard that it could be sealed with a protective wax, which sounded like a good move forward. And then I learnt that it can also be protected with fixative spray. Who knew! What I really wanted, was to mount it on something solid, so I did some online investigating, and found a substrate called Aquabord by Ampersand. A bit more investigating revealed: not much on how to use it. A day or two later though, I was scrolling through my Instagram feed, and up came a post by the National Watercolor Society (U.S.A), for a class on how to use Aquabord by Ali Cavanaugh. What a coincidence! I joined the class and bought some Aquabord straight away.
I’m really glad I invested in this class, because Aquabord is a creature all of it’s own, and watercolour behaves differently on it than it does on paper. Of course, I launched into the course in the deep end, by doing a portrait taken from a challenging angle. This portrait was painted from reference photo, not my own, but a Selfy, taken by my very talented granddaughter Sianna.
