Up in Flames

The destruction of trees by fires inspired me to experiment with watercolor underpainting and soft pastel on watercolor paper with a prepared random-textured surface. The surface was created using recycled tissue paper, crinkled and applied over the entire surface of 140lb watercolor paper with acrylic medium. The acrylic medium serves to glue the crinkled paper to the paper support and to seal the entire surface. Watercolor underpainting was applied wet-in-wet and after drying, soft pastels were applied to bring forth an image suggesting burnt branches of trees engulfed in flames.