Watercolor Wednesday

Yes, I know it's Friday....but I have been p-r-o-c-r-a-s-t-i-n-a-t-i-n-g for a week and 2 days (shocking, I know).  So, I bought some new paint and new paper at a local shop.  In my mind Italy should have fabulous art stores on every corner, reality has been very different. The three places I've found art supplies: large hardware stores, garden store, and house paint store.  My most recent purchase was at the house paint store.  I was very excited to find Italian watercolor paint.  The last paint I bought was from Germany, it was good paint, but always fun to have Italian paint.   The papier I found was a block of reasonably priced, French, fine grain, cold pressed, watercolor paper.  With my pretty new paint, and pretty new paper I painted a grotesque head, naturally.  The actual grotesque head can be found on a fountain in the picturesque town of Costozza.  

I used salt to give my grotesque head that, "I've been around for centuries" look.  If you are painting with lots of water, when the paint is still nice and soupy you can throw some large salt crystals in the puddles and the salt makes some really fun textures.  I think I really like the new paint, but not so much the new paper.  The paper warped itself off of the block and it absorbed the pigment very quickly.  It was a lot like using watercolor paint on Bristol board, which is a very different experience than painting on normal cold press paper.  I am getting ready to paint with the new paint on paper I've used in the past.  I'll give my final verdict on the paint after I've painted with the old paper.  Grotesque heads = really fun painting experience.