Wey into Wet: Mimi van der Merwe

Mimi is well known as an excellent teacher in many different mediums. She has held demos for the water colour society in doing prints, portraits and wet into wet. On the afternoon of the 16th July she gave us a fun afternoon in wet into wet. Many of us had never done this method before. Firstly we dipped our paper into a bath of water then laid it dripping wet onto our board. The water sucked it onto the the piece of board. Then we had to paint a still life from the things set up in front of us. As you put your paint onto to paper it starts to spread. Slowly you start to form forms and add different colours. As the paper dries the brush strokes become clearer. At the end the paper is dry and you add the final strokes and you have an interesting painting. This method of painting can be incorporated into paintings creating softness where needed. You do not need to wet your whole paper to that extent. Just wet the areas you need. As the paper is not stretched it can come loose from the board as it dries especially if it is thin paper. This class was really enjoyable and some people managed to do 2 paintings in the afternoon.