Winter Waiting Skiff

Winter Waiting Skiff

off the public dock at Cape Newagen in Southport, Maine
on March 5, 2014, sketched on March 10, 2014
7" x 5", Winsor & Newton watercolors,
#3 graphite, Crayola white crayon wax resist, on 140 lb.
Strathmore Series 500 hot press archival watercolor paper

Private Collection
Note: Learning the Ropes, so that's how to do it...
thank you John Singer Sargent...
I'd just finished teaching my class at UNH, and stopped at some nearby shops. I'm in the check-out line at a discount store, Five Below, in Portsmouth, NH, getting something foolish for my grand boys.
     I'm thinking about painting a skiff, how to approach it; what about the rope lines? My mind still holds memories of the John Singer Sargent watercolor exhibition I'd seen at the MFA in Boston. I was intrigued by his use of wax to keep the paper white as a color by repelling the watercolor; he called it wax resist, neat. These days we do the same thing by using a liquid masking fluid that dries and is rubbed off after the painting is done.
      I'm next in line beside the discount bin of $1.00 items. I spy Crayola crayons. I open a pack. There's a white one, perfect. Rope lines problem solved. I'll paint the lines to the skiff using the wax resist of a white Crayola crayon. Clear wax would work too, but the white of a white crayon matches the white watercolor paper, fine. I buy two packs, two white crayons, always good to have an extra one at this price. 
     The best part was painting it later that day, washing in the sea's surface with a number 20 round and seeing the boat's lines left behind so perfectly.
     I love going to art museums; learn something new every time.