This is my first attempt painting a wave using watercolors. I was excited to try it and I liked the format of this piece of watercolor paper that I had already torn in half (11" x 30") that I was planning to use for another project. It is Arches 300# cold press paper.
The right side of the paper is a bit smoother than the wrong side which I would have liked to use, but I used the wrong side because I didn't want the huge water mark that Arches paper has to show in the painting. There is a little square that you might be able to see in the lower right corner below my signature that is also part of the watermark that always takes the paint darker as though there is no sizing in that area. That has ruined many of my paintings. I still have a lot of Arches paper which I will use until it is gone, but it is no longer my favorite.
Before starting this painting, I saturated the paper so that I could get some interesting soft edges but had forgotten how much the paint moves on this heavy paper when it's really wet. I intended to paint this using only transparent watercolors and didn't want to have the really hard edges that are created from using resist, but had forgotten how much the paint moves on this heavy paper and I lost a lot of my whites. I used white gouache for the edges of the waves and some of the foam area.
This paper was purchased before Arches began offering their bright white paper so this had a bit of a creamy color which actually adds a little dimension to the whites.
I'm excited to try more of these wave paintings using watercolors. I think this has a more luminous feeling that the ones I've painted in oils.